BLOSSOM-WEEK
make a creditable appearance before the board that night.
Jennie was flitting in and out between the sitting-room and the garden, her hands full of blossoms, filling the china jars on the mantel: none of them contained Quigg's contribution. Patsy was flat on his back on the small patch of green surrounding the porch, playing circus-elephant with Stumpy, who stood over him with leveled head.
Up the hill, but a few rods away, Cully was grazing the Big Gray—the old horse munching tufts of fresh, sweet grass sprinkled with dandelions. Cully walked beside him. Now and then he lifted one of his legs, examining the hoof critically for possible tender places.
There was nothing the matter with the Gray; the old horse was still sound: but it satisfied Cully to be assured, and it satisfied, too, a certain yearning tenderness in his heart toward his old chum. Once in a while he would pat the Gray's neck, smoothing his ragged, half worn mane, addressing him all the while in words of endearment expressed in a slang positively profane and utterly without meaning except to these two.
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