TWO horses, a bay and a gray, were bred on the same farm. Being nearly of an age and about equal in size, they were mated in harness, and, working well together, were kept as a pair. They went to the plough, the harrow, and the hay-wagon season after season. In this close companionship there grew up something of an attachment between them, although they differed in disposition. The gray was patient and uncomplaining, while the bay, though quite as good a worker, was not of so good a temper.

The seasons came and went. In the spring they toiled together turning up the heavy sod, in the autumn hauling in great loads of hay and grain, until at length, as years[311]
[312] passed by, their bulky forms began to shrink and ribs and thigh-bones to appear. More than this, the gray lifted one hind leg higher than formerly, giving a hint of the string-halt, and the bay panted so violently after a short journey as to suggest a thought of the heaves. But they had done their share of work, and the farmer was not the man to sell them off now to some hard fate: they were allowed to stand in the stable or given lighter tasks, while a pair of young horses, that had come on in the mean while, were put to the heavy work about the farm.

One summer day, while the old horses were resting in their stalls, the hay-wagon came in with a load from the field. As it drew near the barn the farmer’s son shouted to encourage his young team up the rise that led on to the barn-floor, and the old pair heard them, as they entered, pounding overhead.

“That is what we used to do,” said the bay, “until they put the colts in our place.”

“We never thought then of getting old and past work,” said the gray.

“But we’ve come to it now.”

“Many a heavy load have we hauled up that rise before them.”

“Yes, I think of it often,” said the bay, “and of something else too: I think of that hard hill over across the bridge. I was not always good to you when we were climbing up that.”

“You always pulled your full share, though.”

“But I needn’t have put back my ears and snapped at you angrily every few steps.”

“Let that go; think no more of it,” said the gray.

“And not only the hill do I remember,” continued the bay, “but many a hot day on the road, while you were doing your best, I jerked in the harness and jeered at you because my nose happened to be a few inches ahead.”

“Think of the pleasant trots we had together, instead,” persisted the gray—“the gambols in the clover-field, and the rolls in the sand down beside the creek. As for the rest, they’re past and forgiven; let them be forgotten.”

“You may forgive them,” said the bay, “but I can’t forgive them myself. And now, while I stand here by your side, both of us grown old, they come back and worry me—yes, more than ever the heavy loads did, or even the driver’s whip.”

Youth is the time of anticipation and of sowing the seed; age is the time of recollection and of reaping the fruits of what we have sown.