It was the little
mouse.
He looked about eagerly, his eyes brightening, but the mouse was gone. He
could not hear it. There seemed nothing unusual to him in the words he
spoke aloud to himself.
"I'm going to call it after the Kid," he chuckled, "I'm goin' to call it
Little Jim. I wonder if it's a girl mouse--or a boy mouse?"
He placed a pan of snow-water on the stove and began making his simple
preparations for breakfast. For the first time in many days he felt
actually hungry. And then all at once he stopped, and a low cry that was
half joy and half wonder broke from his lips. With tensely gripped hands
and eyes that shone with a strange light he stared straight at the blank
surface of the log wall--through it--and a thousand miles away. He
remembered THAT day--years ago--the scenes of which came to him now as
though they had been but yesterday. It was afternoon, in the glorious
summer, and he had gone to Hester's home. Only the day before Hester had
promised to be his wife, and he remembered how fidgety and uneasy and yet
wondrously happy he was as he sat out on the big white veranda, waiting
for her to put on her pink muslin dress, which went go well with the gold
of her hair and the blue of her eyes. And as he sat there, Hester's
maltese pet came up the steps, bringing in its jaws a tiny, quivering
brown mouse. It was playing with the almost lifeless little creature when
Hester came through the door.
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