You've seen them thrashin' machines they're usin' round here. The sort, you know, where the horses keep steppin' up a board thing 's if they was climbin' up-hill or goin' up a pair o' stairs, only they don't never get along a mite; they keep right in the same place all the time, steppin' and steppin', but never gittin' on. Well, I knew a horse once, that worked on one o' them things. His name was Jack, and he was a nice horse. First time they put him on to thrash, he didn't know what the machine was, and he walked along and up the boards quick and lively, and he didn't see why he didn't get on faster. There was a horse side of him named Billy, a kind o' frettin', cross feller, and he see through it right off. "Don't you go along," he says to Jack; "'t ain't no use; you won't never get on, they're foolin' us, and I won't give in to 'em." So Billy he hung back and shook his head, and tried to get away, and to kick, and the man whipped him, and hollered at him. But Jack, he went on quiet and quick and pleasant, steppin' away, and he says softly to Billy, "Come along," he says; "it's all right, we'll be there bimeby. Don't you see how I'm gittin' on a'ready?" And that was the ways things went every day. Jack never gin up; he climbed and climbed, and walked and walked, jest's if he see the place he was goin' to, and 's if it got nearer and nearer. And every night, when they took him off, he was as pleased with his day's journey 's if he'd gone twenty mile. "I've done first-rate to-day," he says to cross, kickin' Billy. "The roads was good, and I never picked up a stone nor dropped a shoe, and I got on a long piece. I'll be there pretty soon," says he. "Why," says Billy, "what a foolish fellow you be! You've been in the same place all day, and ain't got on one mite. What do you mean by _there_? Where is it you think you're goin', anyway?"