Carl was rubbing down the Big Gray. He had been hauling ice all the morning for the brewery. The Gray was under the cart-shed, a flood of winter sunlight silvering his shaggy mane and restless ears. The Swede was scraping his sides with the currycomb, and the Big Gray, accustomed to Cully's gentler touch, was resenting the familiarity by biting at the tippet wound about the neck of the young man. Suddenly Carl raised his head--he had caught a glimpse of a flying apron whipping round the stable door. He knew the pattern. It always gave him a lump in his throat, and some little creepings down his back when he saw it. Then he laid down the currycomb. The next instant there came a sound as of a barrel-head knocked in by a mixing-shovel, and Stumpy flew through the door, followed by Carl on the run. The familiar bit of calico was Jennie's lost apron. One half was inside the goat, the other half was in the hand of the Swede. Carl hesitated for a moment, looked cautiously about the yard, and walked slowly toward the house, his eyes on the fragments. He never went to the house except when he was invited, either to hear Pop read or to take his dinner with the other men. At this instant Jennie came running out, the shawl about her head. “Oh, Carl, did you find my apron? It blew away, and I thought it might have gone into the yard.” “Yas, mees; an' da goat see it too--luke!” extending the tattered fragments, anger and sorrow struggling for the mastery in his face. “Well, I never! Carl, it was a bran'-new one. Now just see, all the strings torn off and the top gone! I'm just going to give Stumpy a good beating.” Carl suggested that he run after the goat and bring him back; but Jennie thought he was down the road by this time, and Carl had been working all the morning and must be tired. Besides, she must get some wood. Carl instantly forgot the goat. He had forgotten everything, indeed, except the trim little body who stood before him looking into his eyes. He glowed all over with inward warmth and delight. Nobody had ever cared before whether he was tired. When he was a little fellow at home at Memlo his mother would sometimes worry about his lifting the big baskets of fish all day, but he could not remember that anybody else had ever given his feelings a thought. All this flashed through his mind as he returned Jennie's look.