You take his head upon your knees, and pat again those glossy ears, and cry; but you can not bring him to life. And Bella comes, and cries with you. You can hardly bear to have him put in the ground; but uncle says he must be buried. So one of the workmen digs a grave under the cherry tree, where he died—a deep grave, and they round it over with earth, and smooth the sods upon it—even now I can trace Tray’s grave. You and Bella together put up a little slab for a tombstone; and she hangs flowers upon it, and ties them there with a bit of ribbon. You can scarce play all that day; and afterward, many weeks later, when you are rambling over the fields, or lingering by the brook, throwing off sticks into the eddies, you think of old Tray’s shaggy coat, and of his big paw, and of his honest eye; and the memory of your boyish grief comes upon you; and you say with tears, “Poor Tray!” And Bella, too, in her sad sweet tones, says—“Poor old Tray—he is dead!” [Illustration] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Illustration] SCHOOL DAYS THE morning was cloudy and threatened rain; besides, it was autumn weather, and the winds were getting harsh, and rustling among the tree-tops that shaded the house most dismally. I did not dare to listen. If, indeed, I were to stay by the bright fires of home, and gather the nuts as they fell, and pile up the falling leaves to make great bonfires, with Ben and the rest of the boys, I should have liked to listen, and would have braved the dismal morning with the cheerfullest of them all. For it would have been a capital time to light a fire in the little oven we had built under the wall; it would have been so pleasant to warm our fingers at it, and to roast the great russets on the flat stones that made the top. But this was not in store for me. I had bid the town boys good-by the day before; my trunk was all packed; I was to go away—to school. The little oven would go to ruin—I knew it would. I was to leave my home. I was to bid my mother good-by, and Lilly, and Isabel, and all the rest; and was to go away from them so far that I should only know what they were all doing—in letters. It _was_ sad. And then to have the clouds come over on that morning, and the winds sigh so dismally; oh, it was too bad, I thought! It comes back to me as I lie here this bright spring morning as if it were only yesterday. I remember that the pigeons skulked under the eaves of the carriage-house, and did not sit, as they used to do in summer, upon the ridge; and the chickens huddled together about the stable doors, as if they were afraid of the cold autumn. And in the garden the white hollyhocks stood shivering, and bowed to the wind, as if their time had come. The yellow musk-melons showed plain among the frost-bitten vines, and looked cold and uncomfortable.