Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 November 1892 — A Family Friend. [ARTICLE]

A Family Friend.

An old man was leading a thin old horse across the commons in the northwestern part of the citv, when a passerby asked him where he was going. •‘l’m searching for a bit of green for the poor beast, ” he answered. “I’d send him to the bone-yard or the glue factory, ” said the other contemptuously. •‘Would you?” asked the old man in a trembling voice; “if he had been the best friend you had in the world, and helped you to earn food for your family for nearly twenty-five years? If the children that’s gone and the children that’s livin’ had played with their arms around his week and their heads on him for a pillow, when they had no other? Sir, he’s carried us to mill and to meetin’, an’ please God he shall die like a Christian, an’ I’ll bury him with these old hands. Nobody’ll ever abuse old Bill, for if he goes afore me there are those as are paid to look after him.” “I beg your pardon,” said the man who had accosted him, “there’s a difference in people.”

“Aye, and in horses, too,” said the old man as he passed on with his four, footed friend.