mouth, though he supplemented it with now and
then a boat-load of coarse, frost-killed grass, but the horse grew more
and more gaunt and restive. His eyes glared with hunger and fury. He
kicked out one side of the cowshed and snapped at Scott whenever he came
near him. Want of use and food had restored him to the original savagery
of his race. Hitherto Scott had never acknowledged Mrs McAlister's gift;
but Sary, who had a vague idea of good manners, caught from the picture
papers and occasional dime novels the tribe of Adirondack travellers
strew even in such a wilderness, kept pecking at him.

"Ta'n't no more'n civil to say thank ye, to the least," she said, till
Scott's temper gave way.

"Stop a-pesterin' of me! I've hed too much. I ain't a speck thankful!
I'm mightily t'other thing, whatever 'tis. Write to her yourself, if
you're a mind tu. You can make a better fist at it, anyways. Comes as
nateral to women to lie as sap to run. I'll be etarnally blessed ef I
touch paper for to do it." And he flung out of the door with a bang.

Of course Sary wrote the letter, which one balmy day electrified Harry
and his mother as they sat basking in Southern sunshine:

"MIS MACALLISTUR: This is fur to say wee is reel
obliged to ye fur the HOSS."

"Good gracious, mother! Did you send them a horse?" ejaculated Harry.

"Why, my dear, I wanted to show my sense of their kindness, and I could
not offer these people money. I thought a horse would be so useful!"

"Useful! in the Adirondack woods!" And Harry burst into a fit of
laughter that scarcely permitted his mother to go on; but at last she
proceeded:

"But Scotty and me ain't ackwainted So to speak with
Hoss ways; he seems kinder Hum-sick if you may say that
of a Cretur. We air etarnally gratified to You for sech
a Valewble Pressent, but if you was Wiling we shood
Like to swapp it of in spring fur a kow, ourn Being
some in years.

"yours to Command, SARY PECK."

But long before Mrs. McAlister's permission to "swap" the horse reached
Scott Peck, the creature took his destiny into his own hands. Scott had
gone away on a desperate errand, to fetch some sort of food for the poor
creature, whose bones stared him in the face, and Sary went out one
morning to give him her potato-peelings and some scraps of bread, when,
suddenly, he jerked his head fiercely, snapped his halter in two, and
wheeled round upon the frightened wom