The ox instantly stopped, the boy rose and sat down on the sack, resting his elbows on his knees and his chin in the hollow of his tiny brown hands. His features retained their set, dogged expression, but presently big tears began to trickle slowly down over his determined little face. He sat with his back toward the mountain gap, locking out over the vast wilderness of tree tops below him. The ox stood before him in the road, a figure of unending patience. The day waned, long shadows crossed the road, the sun withdrew to the high places. Far away through the deep wooded gorges night began to enter the mountains. CHAPTER II |WHEN the man came out into the mountain road, he saw the little boy sitting on the sack of corn beside the red ox, and he smiled as he had smiled at the hammering birds, at the yellow butterflies. He turned down toward the tragic picture, lengthening his steps. The sun, by some trick of the moving world, seemed to follow him out of the abandoned path. The little boy did not see the man approaching, but he observed that the ox, apparently resigned to passing the night on the mountain, was making ready to lie down, knees first, after the manner of cattle. And the comfortable assurance of Berry in this, the hour of their misfortune, was more than he could bear. He arose and began to beat the ox with his little fists. “Git up, Berry!” he cried. “You ole dog! You ole scalawag! Git up!” The ox slowly arose, and the child turned to find the man beside him. “Poor Berry!” said the man, smiling. “Is he a very bad ox?” “He's a lazy ole pup,” replied the little hoy, his wet eyes catching and reflecting the stranger's smile. “He's spilt!” Then he crowded his little fists into his eyes to remove the traces of weakness with which he had been taken unawares. “Do you reckon,” he said, “that both of us could put the corn on him if we lifted together?” “I think so,” replied the man; “at least we will try.” He took up the piece of yellow carpet and laid it over the ox's back. Then he stooped down, put his arms around the sack, linking his fingers together under it. The little hoy took hold of the corner. The man raised the sack with scarcely an effort, the child contributing his tiny might. Then, as though the child's help were essential to the task, he nodded. “Now,” he said, and with a swing lifted the sack onto the ox's back. The hoy straightened up, and put both little hands on his hips. His face was now radiant. “We got it up all right, didn't we?” he said, “both a-liftin'; an' now,” he paused and regarded the ox with some concern, “I've got to git on somehow-er-nuther.” The ordinary man would then have lifted the child and set him on the ox, but this man did not. He seemed to know and regard that self-reliance which was so dear a thing to this child. He stood back and looked over the patriarch. “Berry is a big ox,” he said. “We will lead him up to the bank.”