Halsey. "My mother would have been about as old as you are if she had lived."
"That makes us friends," said the woman, sitting down upon a knoll beside the young man, "I have lost my son and you have lost your mother. Now tell me what it is that troubles you. It often helps to tell such things. Perhaps it is something that can be mended."
"Oh no, it can't," replied Halsey. "It is something that I ought not to mind. I am a great booby to mind. But you see I brought him up. He was given to me when he was only a colt, a month old."
"I thought it was something to do with a horse when I first saw your jockey suit. Tell me all about it," said the kind lady.
The woman looked so sympathetic and Halsey was so lonely just then that he did as she bade him and told her the long story of his boyhood and Palo'mine. He told it well, with all the enthusiasm of youth and with his grief welling up in his voice. When he had finished the kind woman gave his hand a warm motherly squeeze.
