Ahead of me, in a plum thicket beside the
road, I saw two boys bending over a dead dog. The little one, not more
than four or five, was on his knees, his hands folded, and his
close-clipped, bare head drooping forward in deep dejection. The other
stood beside him, a hand on his shoulder, and was comforting him in a
language I had not heard for a long while. When I stopped my horses
opposite them, the older boy took his brother by the hand and came toward
me. He, too, looked grave. This was evidently a sad afternoon for them.
`Are you Mrs. Cuzak's boys?' I asked.
The younger one did not look up; he was submerged in his own feelings, but
his brother met me with intelligent grey eyes. `Yes, sir.'
`Does she live up there on the hill? I am going to see her. Get in and
ride up with me.'
He glanced at his reluctant little brother. `I guess we'd better walk.
But we'll open the gate for you.'
I drove along the side-road and they followed slowly behind. When I pulled
up at the windmill, another boy, barefooted and curly-headed, ran out of
the barn to tie my team for me. He was a handsome one, this chap,
fair-skinned and freckled, with red cheeks and a ruddy pelt as thick as a
lamb's wool, growing down on his neck in little tufts. He tied my team
with two flourishes of his hands, and nodded when I asked him if his mother
was at home.
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