taken the fever, for there was not a
case in town.

There was a widow left with three orphans, and they never knew that
they had to blame a dirty careless milkman for taking a kind husband and
father from them.

CHAPTER II THE CRUEL MILKMAN

I HAVE said that Jenkins spent most of his days in idleness. He had to
start out very early in the morning, in order to supply his customers
with milk for breakfast. Oh, how ugly he used to be, when he came into
the stable on cold winter mornings, before the sun was up.

He would hang his lantern on a hook, and get his milking stool, and if
the cows did not step aside just to suit him, he would seize a broom or
fork, and beat them cruelly.

My mother and I slept on a heap of straw in the corner of the stable,
and when she heard his step in the morning she always roused me, so that
we could run out-doors as soon as he opened the stable door. He always
aimed a kick at us as we passed, but my mother taught me how to dodge
him.

After he finished milking, he took the pails of milk up to the house
for Mrs. Jenkins to strain and put in the cans, and he came back and
harnessed his horse to the cart. His horse was called Toby, and a poor,
miserable, broken-down creature he was. He was weak in the knees, and
weak in the back, and weak all over, and Jenkins had to beat him all the
time, to make him go. He had been a cab horse, and his mouth had been
jerked, and twisted, and sawed at, till one would think there could be
no feeling left in it; still I have seen him wince and curl up his lip
when Jenkins thrust in the frosty bit on a winter's morning.

Poor old Toby! I used to lie on my straw some times and wonder he did
not cry out with pain. Cold and half starved he always was in the winter
time, and often with raw sores on his body that Jenkins would try
to hide by putting bits of cloth under the harness. But Toby never
murmured, and he never tried to kick and bite, and he minded the least
word from Jenkins, and if he swore at him Toby would start back, or step
up quickly, he was so anxious to please him.

After Jenkins put him in the cart, and took in the cans, he set out on
his rounds. My mother, whose name was Jess, always went with him. I used
to ask her why she followed such a brute of a man, and she would hang
her head, and say that sometimes she got a bone from the different
houses they stopped at. But that was not the whole reason. She liked
Jenkins so much, that she wan