how pleasant the noise of the chatting
and joking going on around him; how bright and sweet the boys and girls
looked, with their rosy cheeks and sparkling eyes; and how the old
parson's heart thrilled as they crowded around him when he would go, and
urged him to stay,--and little Alice Dorchester begged him, with her
little arms around his neck, to "jes' stay and gib me one more slide,
please!"

"You never made such a pastoral call as that, parson," said the deacon,
as they drove away amid the cheers of the boys and the "good-bys" of the
girls, while the former fired off a volley of snow-balls in his honor,
and the latter waved their muffs and handkerchiefs after them.

"God bless them! God bless them!" said the parson. "They have lifted a
load from my heart, and taught me the sweetness of life, of youth, and
the wisdom of Him who took the little ones in His arms, and blessed
them. Ah, deacon," he added, "I've been a great fool, but I'll be so,
thank God! no more."

Now, old Jack was a horse of a great deal of character, and had a great
history; but of this none in that section, save the little deacon, knew
a word. Dick Tubman, the deacon's youngest, wildest, and, we might add,
favorite son, had purchased him of an impecunious jockey, at the close
of a disastrous campaign, that cleaned him completely out, and left him
in a strange city a thousand miles from home, with nothing but the
horse, harness, and sulky, and a list of unpaid bills that must be met
before he could leave the scene of his disastrous fortunes. Under such
circumstances it was that Dick Tubman ran across the horse, and partly
out of pity for its owner, and partly out of admiration of the horse,
whose failure to win at the races was due more to his lack of condition
and the bad management of his jockey than lack of speed, bought him
off-hand, and, having no use for him himself, shipped him as a present
to the deacon, with whom he had now been four years, with no harder work
than ploughing out the good old man's corn in the summer, and jogging
along the country roads on the deacon's errands. Having said thus much
of the horse, perhaps we should more particularly describe him.

He was, in sooth, an animal of most unique and extraordinary appearance;
for, in the first place, he was quite seventeen hands in height, and
long in proportion. He was also the reverse of shapely in the fashion of
his build: for his head was long and bony, and his hip bones sh