Poor Master!
Well, he came into my stall, where I had literally shivered with terror ever since that dreadful morning four days before, and, throwing his arms about my neck, burst into tears. A long while he sobbed there, and then growing calmer, he began caressing me, and said:
"Dandy, boy, you are going home with me, to live with me while I live, to walk beside my coffin, and to be shot beside my grave, if so be you outlive me."
Sad words, but they were a comfort to me, feeling as I did.
Presently the boy came in and groomed me until my snowy coat shone like silk.
"I hate to part with ye, Dandy, fer fact I do!" he said, standing off and looking me over, "but then ye'd a gone anyhow, I s'pose." Then he put a halter on me and led me out to where the doctor's horses were standing hitched to a buggy and tied me fast to the back.
All the folks came out of the house and surely they cried harder than on either of those other days, but the doctor, with his lips white and set close together, hurried into the buggy and, with a backward nod, drove off. I glanced back and neighed good-by, then took up my journey with a heavy heart. I wanted to go and yet I wanted to stay. Certainly it was not enlivening to have to watch my master's agony all that weary seventy miles to his home.
Of course we stopped over night, and my first night it was away from home. I assure you that I felt lonely and wretched enough.
"Give all my horses the best of care," Master said to the hostler, "especially the white one."
The man promised and led us away.