Show ae t 7 V ay E MY GRAY MARE BESS the boys agreed to lead her off up in the brush today and end her earthly misery in A humane kind of way shed grown so old and useless that we argued she would be much better dead than living in in such helpless misery j but as they led her limping through the yawning gate I 1 swallowed unresistingly to realize her fate and pondered retrospectively the years that she had been next thing if I 1 should say it to my aly closest blood and kin I 1 looked there on her knotted knees all stiff from overwork her shoulders ca loused to th ebone and through the mirk of memry how id bayed the whip in ana anger eror or when she had really been too tired or A mite too slow for me I 1 thought back on the countless days shed hungered in her stall or thirsted from the fact that I 1 would not respect her call how never had she whimpered from the tasks id set her to and never balked my orders all her faithful lifetime through I 1 caught a parting view as she passed yonder through the lane her form in ill proportions through my aly tears that fell from pain to know that I 1 could do no more than this in thankfulness to all those years of ceaseless toil for her my gra artly mar bes besst 1 1 alkali ike |