It was in the summer of 1894 that I was sitting upon the piazza of a friend’s home in the pretty suburban town of Elton. It was about four o’clock, and as I sat drinking in the beauty of the sunshine and the shadow as they flickered upon the soft green lawn, I heard the measured pat-pat of a horse’s footfall. Alive to the slightest sound, either regular or irregular, in the footfall of the animal I love best of all my four-footed friends, I instantly recognized in this one an unfamiliar sound, as though the animal making it had a mode of navigation peculiar to itself. As I glanced up the sound suddenly ceased, and I saw standing at the foot of the driveway a bay horse harnessed to a milk-wagon. It would have been difficult for me to tell what there was in the animal to distinguish him from a dozen others which might have stopped at the door, but there was an indefinable _something_, and I watched him, feeling instinctively that something interesting would develop. Nor did my instinct mislead me. The driver of the horse, an elderly man, whose kindly face and scrupulous neatness were in perfect harmony with the contented look worn by the animal he drove, and with its glossy, shining coat, which testified to the care given to it, stepped from his wagon and then turned to take from it a wire stand filled with jars of rich, creamy milk, and started with them toward the kitchen at the rear of the house. As his driver left him the horse turned back one ear, but further than that gave no evidence that he was at all interested in the man’s movements. But directly the sound of his footfalls had ceased to be heard, the pretty bay head, with the softest of velvety white noses and big brown eyes, was turned quite around in order to have a good look into the wagon--for, happily, the headstall had no blinders. Evidently all was as it should be, and with a nod of his head, as though saying “yes,” the animal started off. My first impulse was to call out “whoa,” but something in the wise, self-contained air of the creature compelled me to await developments. Curving well outward, that the wheels of the wagon need not come in contact with the curbstone, the horse started down the street, crossing immediately to the right side in order to obey the rule of the highway which says, “Keep to the right.” Passing four or five houses, he stopped at one, and, bringing his wagon close to the curb, turned and looked around. A moment later his driver reappeared and followed his business partner across the street. Again the milk jars were taken from the wagon, and again the horse started on, this time to the second house. It was funny enough to watch him; he was as familiar with the route, and the time necessary for each delivery, as his master, and evidently felt as much responsibility. Turning to my friend, who just then joined me upon the piazza, I asked: “Who is the milkman whose horse seems as familiar with the milk route as he himself does?”