I had been big enough, or a horse. You see, I was
proud of that horse, and liked him, and he loved me. As a joke the
hostlers down at the boarding stable where we kept him called him
Bovolarapus; but I called him Bo for short, because it didn't seem fair
that we shouldn't be familiar with each other. I'm sure he thought of me
as Jim for short; so I called him Bo. He used to take a kick at anybody
else who came near him, but I could put a hot iron on his poor old heels
without a single vicious jerk from him. He bit nearly everyone who got
too close or too curious, but he'd put his lips up to my cheek and kiss
me when something had hurt my feelings, and I'd get into some quiet lane
and tell him all about it--sometimes with my arms around his tired old
neck! I tell you he was mighty comforting to me when everything went
wrong. You won't believe it, but I used to fancy that sometimes he tried
to whisper into my ear and that he said, 'Take it quietly, boy! Just do
the best you can. I know that sometimes the hill is terribly hard to
climb, and bitterly long, but somewhere there is always a top. Don't
think of the load, the whip, or the hill, but keep thinking, always, of
what it's like on top. Many times they'll hurt you when you're doing
your best, because they're cruel, or don't understand. But most of those
who drive you--and someone or something must drive you as long as you
live,--don't really mean to be hard. It's merely because they don't
understand. Sometimes you'll be very tired, and out of breath, and the
sweat of hard work will drip and trickle from your ears down over your
eyes, and you'll think that another yard is beyond all you can do. But
keep on! Stick it! You can always do a little more than you think you
can if you've the courage to try. And there's always a top to every
hill, lad! It's only up there that you can breathe, and that the load is
light, and that there is rest!'"

A band that had been playing off up in the balcony at the far end
stopped, as if waiting for the next event, and abruptly aware that he
had said so much, and surprised by his own unmeasured loquacity, he,
too, stopped, abashed, and for the first time in his speech looked at
her and met her eyes. They were soft, filled with wonder, absorbed. He
could not have defined why he was so swiftly ashamed of thus openly
flouting that boyhood heart of his upon his sleeve. He could not have
explained what strange lapse had overpowered him to thus u