The boy's voice trembled. Caroline's face clouded with sympathy.
"Did he die?" she ventured.
"No," he said, shortly; "no, he didn't die. He's alive. He couldn't stand my ways. I tried to stay in school and — and all that, but soon as spring came I had to be off. So the last time, he told me we had to part, him and me."
"What was his name?" she asked gently.
The boy jerked his head toward the dog.
"That's his name," he said, "William Thayer." A little frown gathered on Caroline's smooth forehead; she felt instinctively the cloud on all this happy wandering. The spring had beckoned, and he had followed, helpless at the call, but something — what and how much? — tugged at his heart; its shadow dimmed the blue of the April sky.
He shrugged his shoulders with a sigh; the smile came again into his gray eyes and wrinkled his freckled face.
"Oh, well, let's be jolly," he cried, with a
