bigger block to the new snow fort they were building than any three boys among them.  And how the parson enjoyed being a boy again!  How exhilarating the slide down the steep hill; how invigorating the pure, cool air; how pleasant the noise of the chatting and joking going on around him; how bright and sweet the boys and girls looked, with their rosy cheeks and sparkling eyes; how the old parson’s heart thrilled as they crowded around him when he would go, and urged him to stay; and how little Alice Dorchester begged him, with her little 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.”]