t did not
make him a strong one.

The team came rattling slowly on. The old white horse which drew it
planted his great hoofs lumberingly in the tracks, nodding at every
step.

As it came nearer, Jerome, watching, gave a quick gasp. The wagon
contained wood nicely packed; the reins were wound carefully around
one of the stakes; and there was no driver. Jerome tried to call out,
tried to run forward, but he could not. He could only stand still,
watching, his boyish face deadly white, his eyes dilating. The old
white horse came on, dragging his load faithfully and steadily
towards his home. He never swerved from his tracks except once, when
he turned out carefully for a bad place in the road, where the ground
seemed to be caving in, which Abel Edwards had always avoided with a
loaded team. There was something awful about this old animal, with
patient and laborious stupidity in every line of his plodding body,
obeying still that higher intelligence which was no longer visible at
his guiding-reins, and perhaps had gone out of sight forever. It had
all the uncanny horror of a headless spectre advancing down the road.

Jerome collected himself when the white horse came alongside. "Whoa!
Whoa, Peter!" he gasped out. The horse stopped and stood still, his
great forefeet flung stiffly forward, his head and ears and neck
hanging as inertly as a broken tree-bough with all its leaves
drooping.

The boy stumbled weakly to the side of the wagon and stretched
himself up on tiptoe. There was nothing there but the wood. He stood
a minute, thinking. Then he began searching for the hitching-rope in
the front of the wagon, but he could not find it. Finally he led the
horse to the side of the road, unwound the reins from the stake, and
fastened him as well as he could to a tree.

Then he went on down the road. His knees felt weak under him, but
still he kept up a good pace. When he reached the Prescott place he
paused and looked irresolutely a moment through the trees at the
great square mansion-house, with its green, glancing window-panes.

Then he ran straight on. The ten-acre wood-lot which belonged to his
father was about a half-mile farther. It was a birch and chestnut
wood, and was full of the green shimmer of new leaves and the silvery
glistening of white boughs as delicate as maidens' arms. There was a
broad cart-path leading through it. Jerome entered this directly when
he reached the wood. Then he began calling. "Father!"