no cry. He
simply went to the coop, felt it, as if to locate it for the future,
then came on toward the house. His head was bowed, though, as if with
that shame he seemed always to feel when because of his affliction he
happened to have an accident. But his tail was still wagging.

"Mac!" It broke from the man.

The blind dog raised his head and whiffed the air. Then he located his
master and came toward him. He laid his head on Tom Jennings's knee, and
Tom Jennings laid his big hard hand on the blind dog's head.

"God struck you!" he said hoarsely, "an' you never give up. God put out
yo' eyes, and still you do your work. An' you're only a dumb brute, an'
I was made in the image of God!"

The rural telephone in the hall suddenly gave his ring, and he rose and
went into the house.

"Yes--I've decided, Tom," he said. "I ain't goin' to sell the farm."

After that there came, perforce, a change in Jennings's method of
farming. Years ago Frank had besought him to diversify his crops, to
study his soil, to take advantage of the information the agricultural
college and the Government were so glad to send.

But to the older Jennings thinking had always been harder than physical
toil. Brought up right after the Civil War in a section left
poverty-stricken, he could just read and write--that was all; for when
he was twelve his service between the plough handles had begun, and
there he had served ever since.

Now, from necessity, he began to think and plan. He asked the
agricultural college for information, and they sent not only pamphlets
but a representative from an experiment station to consult with him and
advise him. He sold a bit of land and bought farm machinery. He built a
tenant house and installed help. And all the time Frank (who did not
know of the leaking heart) also advised him by letters, and when he
came home in the summer, helped wonderfully--both by hard work and by
mental initiative.

No great prosperity followed. But Tom Jennings did a shade better than
he had done before, and the children stayed at college. Not even Martha
knew the extent of what the doctor had told him that day. Only to Mac
did he talk freely.

"When yo' eyes was put out, ol' codger, you whetted yo' nose," he would
say; "and when my muscles lost their engine power I whetted my ol' rusty
brain."

His children all did well at college. Frank finished an academic course
(Tom and Martha saw him graduate), then went off to a medical