We two were his only customers in that street, and during the summer Mrs. Thompson’s house was closed for several weeks. At first Charlie was determined to go on to the closed house, and not until he had received most peremptory orders to “stand still, now, and wait till I come back; don’t you know those folks aren’t there now?” and had been summarily turned around and headed in the opposite direction did he grasp the situation; but once it was settled in the horse-mind, all was plain sailing for both horse and driver, and directly the jars of milk had vanished around the corner of our house, Charlie would turn his wagon carefully around and stand perfectly still to await his master’s return; for the next customer’s house was many blocks away, and Charlie had no notion of making Mr. Harris walk to it. We often wondered how he reasoned it all out, but he certainly did, and never by any chance missed a customer or gave his master an uncomfortably long walk. Charlie’s place in this world was indeed a humble one, but the example he set might be followed with advantage by many a human being. At two o’clock each afternoon Charlie would watch his master as he milked his herd of sleek cows. He knew just how their turns came and exactly how long it would take to milk “Jinny” and “Bossy” and “Buttercup” and “Daffy,” and so on down the herd of ten or a dozen; and while they were milked Charlie poked about the barnyard. He appreciated a joke, and was never happier than when his master was the object of it. He would frequently come up softly behind Mr. Harris, who was very hard of hearing, and thrust his warm nose over his master’s shoulder as he sat upon a milking stool, and when Mr. Harris, giving a start which nearly proved fatal to the contents of the shining pail, turned about to shake his fist at the horse and cry “Get along out of the way, you scamp!” Charlie would seem as delighted over the prank as a child. One day Charlie was unusually winsome, and, as Mr. Harris prepared to take his place in the wagon, he stopped to stroke the soft neck and say: