The Uphill Road

For Trove it was a day of sowing. The strange old tinker had
filled his heart with a new joy and a new desire. Next morning he
got a ride to Hillsborough--fourteen miles--and came back, reading,
as he walked, a small, green book, its thin pages covered thick
with execrably fine printing, its title "The Works of Shakespeare."
He read the book industriously and with keen pleasure. Allen
complained, shortly, that Shakespeare and the filly had interfered
with the potatoes and the corn.

The filly ceased to take food and sickened for a time after the dam
left her. Trove lay in the stall nights and gave her milk
sweetened to her liking. She grew strong and playful, and forgot
her sorrow, and began to follow him like a dog on his errands up
and down the farm. Trove went to school in the autumn--"Select
school," it was called. A two-mile journey it was, by trail, but a
full three by the wagon road. He learned only a poor lesson the
first day, for, on coming in sight of the schoolhouse, he heard a
rush of feet behind him and saw his filly charging down the trail.
He had to go back with her and lose the day, a thought dreadful to
him, for now hope was high, and school days few and precious. At
first he was angry. Then he sat among the ferns, covering his face
and sobbing with sore resentment. The little filly stood over him
and rubbed her silky muzzle on his neck, and kicked up her heels in
play as he pushed her back. Next morning he put her behind a
fence, but she went over it with the ease of a wild deer and came
bounding after him. When, at last, she was shut in the box-stall
he could hear her calling, half a mile away, and it made his heart