Shocky had not spoken.  He lay listening to the pattering music of the horse’s feet, doubtless framing the footsteps of the roan colt into an anthem of praise to the God who had not forgot.  But as the dawn came on, making the snow whiter, he raised himself and said half-aloud, as he watched the flakes chasing one another in whirling eddies, that the snow seemed to be having a good time of it.  Then he leaned down again on the master’s bosom, full of a still joy, and only roused himself from his happy reverie to ask what that big, ugly-looking house was.

“See, Mr. Hartsook, how big it is, and how little and ugly the windows is!  And the boards is peeling off all over it, and the hogs is right in the front yard.  It don’t look just like a house.  It looks dreadful.  What is it?”

Ralph had dreaded this question.  He did not answer it, but asked Shocky to change his position a little, and then he quickened the pace of the horse.  But Shocky was a poet, and a poet understands silence more quickly than he does speech.  The little fellow shivered as the truth came to him.

“Is that the poor-house?” he said, catching his breath.  “Is my mother in that place? Won’t you take me in there, so as I can just kiss her once?  ’Cause she can’t see much, you know.  And one kiss from me will make her feel so good.  And I’ll tell her that God ha’n’t forgot.”  He had raised up and caught hold of Ralph’s coat.

Ralph had great difficulty in quieting him.  He told him that if he went in there Bill Jones might claim that he was a runaway and belonged there.  And poor Shocky only shivered and said he was cold.  A minute later, Ralph found that he was shaking with a chill, and a horrible dread came over him.  What if Shocky should die?  It was only a minute’s work to get down, take the warm horse-blanket from under the saddle, and wrap it about the boy, then to strip off his own overcoat and add that to it.  It was now daylight, and finding, after he had mounted, that Shocky continued to shiver, he put the roan to his best speed for the rest of the way, trotting up and down the slippery hills, and galloping away on the level ground.  How bravely the roan laid himself to his work, making the fence-corners fly past in a long procession!  But poor little Shocky was too cold to notice them, and Ralph shuddered lest Shocky should never be warm again, and spoke to the roan, and the roan stretched out his head, and dropped one ear back to hear the first word of command, and stretched the other forward to listen for danger, and then flew with a splendid speed down the road, past the patches of blackberry briars, past the elderberry bushes, past the familiar red-haw tree in the fence-corner, over the bridge without regard to the threat of a five-dollar fine, and at last up the long lane into the village, where the smoke from the chimneys was caught and whirled round with the snow.

CHAPTER XXI.