arms around his neck, to "jes stay and gib me one more slide."

[Illustration: "_Little Alice Dorchester begged him to stay._"]

"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-byes of the
girls, while the former fired off a volley of snowballs 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
great 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."

III

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, I might add,
favorite son, had purchased him of an impecunious jockey at the close of
a, to him, 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 for four years, with no harder
work than plowing out the good old man's corn in the summer, and jogging
along the country roads on the deacon's errands. Having said this much
of the horse, perhaps I should more particularly describe him.

[Illustration: "_Old Jack was a horse of a great deal of character._"]

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 sharp and
protuberant; his tail was what is known among horsemen as a "rat tail,"
being but scantily covered with hair, and his neck was even more
scantily supplied with a mane; while in