So she knelt down by the side of the bed, and smoothing his hair back from his forehead, talked gently to him for a long time. After more good-night kisses she left him, and went back to her never-ending work. This, for Joe, was the hardest part of leaving home; for he was very fond of his mother, and knew that his going would almost break her heart. Still, now that he had resolved to go, he would not change his mind, even for his mother’s sake. It was long before Joe fell asleep, and even then he was beset by unpleasant dreams, so that his rest availed him but little. Before daybreak he arose, dressed himself, gathered into a bundle a few articles of clothing, a few of his choicest treasures, and a little money that he had earned and saved, and then on tiptoe left his room. At the end of the hall a door was opened, and a little white-robed figure glided out and into his arms. It was Jennie. “O Joe!” she whispered, “are you really going?” “’Sh! Jen, don’t make any noise. Yes, I’m going. There, don’t cry--good-by!” He bent down and kissed her, but she could not speak for the sobs that choked her. After holding her arms around his neck for a moment, she vanished into her room. Joe went softly down the stairs, and out at the kitchen door. It was cool and refreshing in the open air. In the east the sky was beginning to put on the gray of morning. Jennie, looking down through the dusk from the window of her room, saw Joe walk down the path to the road gate, then turn, as if some new thought had struck him, and cross the yard to the barn, entering it by the stable door. “Oh!” exclaimed the child to herself, in a frightened whisper, “oh! he’s going to take the horse; he’s going to take Charlie!” She sank down on the floor, and covered her face with her hands. She did not want to see so dreadful a thing happen. But curiosity finally got the better of her fear, and she looked out again just in time to see some one lead the gray horse from the stable, mount him, and ride away into the dusk. “O Joe!” she murmured. “O Charlie! Oh, what will Father say now! Isn’t it dreadful, dreadful!” But though she did not know it, the person whom Jennie saw riding away into the dusk on old Charlie’s back was not Joe. CHAPTER II. WHO TOOK OLD CHARLIE? Joe’s errand to the stable on the morning when he went away was not what his sister Jennie supposed. He went there only to say farewell to the horse that had been his friend and companion since he was a little child. He loved “Old Charlie,” and could not go away without caressing him and saying good-by. The great gray horse, wakened by the opening of the stable door, rose clumsily to his feet, and stared, a little frightened, across his manger toward the visitor who came so early. “Hello, Charlie!” said Joe, softly, feeling his way forward in the darkness of the stable, and laying his hand on the horse’s forehead. “I’m going away, Charlie; I thought I’d come and say good-by to you.”