with comforts, without stealing her own butter. Jedwort was a burden; but, in spite of him, that was just about the happiest family, for the next four years, that ever lived on this planet.
"Jedwort soon got his bodily health, but I don't think he knew one of us again after his hurt. As near as I could get at his state of mind, he thought he had been changed into some sort of animal. He seemed inclined to take me for a master, and for four years he followed me around like a dog. During that time he never spoke, but only whined and growled. When I said, 'Lie down,' he'd lie down; and when I whistled he'd come.
"I used sometimes to make him work; and certain simple things he would do very well, as long as I was by. One day I had a jag of hay to get in; and, as the boys were away, I thought I'd have him load it. I pitched it on to the wagon about where it ought to lie, and looked to him only to pack it down. There turned out to be a bigger load than I had expected, and the higher it got, the worse the shape of it, till finally, as I was starting it toward the barn, off it rolled, and the old man with it, head foremost.
"He struck a stone heap, and for a moment I thought he was killed. But he jumped up and spoke for the first time. 'I'll blow it,' says he, finishing the sentence he had begun four years before, when he called for the horn to be passed up to him.
