CATHEDRAL, ANTWERP

PART II.

The old soldier, Jehan Daas, could do nothing for his living but limp about a little with a small cart, with which he carried, daily, into the town of Antwerp, the milk-cans of those happier neighbors who owned cattle. But it was becoming hard work for the old He was eighty

man.

three, and Antwerp

was a long way off.

One day, when Petrasche was quite well, and was lying in the sun, with the wreath of daisies round his tawny neck, he watched the milk-cans come and go.

The next morning, before the old man had touched the cart, Petrasche rose and walked to it, placed himself between its handles, and said, as plainly as dumb show could, that his desire was to work in return for the bread he had eaten.

Jehan Daas resisted long, for the old man was one of those who thought it a shame to bind dogs to labor for which nature never formed them. But Petrasche would not be denied. Finding they did not harness him, he tried to draw the cart onward with his teeth. At length, Jehan Daas gave way, and made the cart so that Petrasche could run in it every morning of his life.

When the winter came, Jehan Daas thanked the blessed fortune that had brought him to the dying dog in the ditch that fair day; for he was very old, and he grew feebler with each year, and he would ill have known how to pull his load of milk-cans over the snows and through the deep ruts in the mud, if it had not been for the strength of the animal he had befriended.

As for Petrasche, it seemed heaven to him. After the frightful burdens that his first master had

made him strain under, at the call of the whip at every step, it seemed nothing to him but play to step out with this little, light, green cart, and its bright, brass cans, by the side of the gentle old man, who always paid him with a tender caress and kind words.

His work was over by three or four o'clock in the day, when he was free to do as he would — to stretch himself, to sleep in the sun, to wander in the fields, to romp with the young child, or to play with his fellow-dogs. Petrasche was very happy.

A few years later, old Jehan Daas, who had always been a cripple, became so feeble that it was impossible for him to go with the cart. Then, little Nello, being in his sixth year, and knowing the town well, took his place beside the cart, and sold the milk, and received the coins, and brought them back to their owners with a pretty grace, which charmed all who beheld him.

He was a beautiful child, with dark, grave, tender eyes, and a lovely bloom upon his face, and fair locks that clustered about his face; and many an artist sketched the group as it went by the

green cart, with the brass milk-cans, and the great tawny-colored dog, with his belled harness that chimed cheerily as he went, and the small figure that ran beside him, which had little white feet, in great wooden shoes, and a soft, grave, innocent, happy face, like the little, fair children in Rubens' pictures.

Nello and Petrasche did the work so well and so joyfully, that Jehan Daas, himself, when the summer came and he was better again, had no need to stir out, but could sit in the doorway, in the sun, and see them go forth through the garden-wicket, and doze, and dream, and pray a little, and then awake again as the clock tolled three, and watch for their

return.

And, on their return, Petrasche would shake himself free of his harness with a bark of glee, and Nello would tell, with pride, the doings of the day; and they would all go in together to their meal of rye bread and milk, or soup, and see the shadows lengthen over the great plain, and the twilight veil the fair cathedral spire; and then lie down together, to sleep peacefully, after the old man had said a prayer.

So the days and the years went on, and the lives of Nello and Petrasche were happy, innocent, and healthful. In the spring and summer, especially, were they glad.

In the winter it was harder; they had to rise in the darkness and the bitter cold, and seldom had as much as they could eat. The hut was scarce better than a shed when the nights were cold, and in winter, the winds found many holes in the walls. The snow numbed the little white limbs of Nello, and the icicles cut the brave, untiring feet of Petrasche.

But even then they were never heard to lament. The child's wooden shoes, and the dog's four legs, trotted manfully together over the frozen fields, to the chime of the bells on the harness; and then, sometimes, in the streets of Antwerp, some housewife brought them a bowl of soup and a handful of bread; some kindly trader threw billets of fuel into the little cart as it went homeward; or some woman in their own village bade them keep some share of the milk they carried.

Then they ran over the white lands, through