hing and sneezing enough
to take our heads off, and so sick and low, some of us, that we couldn't
stand in our stalls, and a man with a red face, Master Fred had over
from Skipton Mills, pouring nasty stuff down our throats, and making us
swallow big black balls of medicine that hurt as they went down--as if
we hadn't enough to suffer before! But our Jenny came to the stable with
a piece of pork-rind, and a bandage she'd made out of her little
red-flannel petticoat, and she wanted Master Fred to put it on my neck;
for, says she: 'That's what ma put on me when I had the sore
throat,'--the blessed child!

"Well, we all pulled through except Filly's colt. He keeled over one
morning, poor fellow! and was dragged out and buried under the oaks in
the high pasture. But for some reason, I didn't pick up as quick as the
others. The cough held on, and I was pestered for breath, and I didn't
get back my strength; and what I ate didn't seem to fatten me up much,
for Master Fred says one day, laughing, 'Well, Old Star, we've saved
your skin and bones, and that's about all!' However, I got round again,
only my legs had a bad habit of giving way under me, without the least
bit of warning.

"Our Ada did all she could to keep me up, holding a tight rein, and
saying, 'Steady, Star! steady!' when she saw any signs of stumbling. But
trying to keep from it seemed to make me do it all the more, and down I
would come on my poor knees and spill those children out of the wagon,
like blackberries from a full basket.

"One day, after this had happened, master told our Ada she was not to
drive me any more, and before I had got over feeling bad about that,
there came some thing a great deal worse; for I was standing by the pump
in the backyard one day, and master and mistress were in the porch, and
I heard him tell her he had had an offer from Jones the milkman, to buy
me. 'Twould be an easy place, and he'd promised to treat me well, and
he'd about made up his mind to take up with it; for he couldn't afford
to keep a horse on the place that--well, I don't care to repeat the rest
of the speech. 'Twas rather hard on me, but I haven't laid it up against
master. Fact is, he had a deal to worry him about that time, for he was
disappointed in the wheat crop, and the heavy rains had damaged his
corn, and he was feeling mighty poor.

"But mistress was up in arms in a minute. 'What, sell Star!' says she,
'our good, faithful Star, who's been in the famil