But even then they were never heard to lament, either of them. The
child's wooden shoes and the dog's four legs would trot 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
would bring them a bowl of soup and a handful of bread, or some kindly
trader would throw some billets of fuel into the little cart as it went
homeward, or some woman in their own village would bid them keep a share
of the milk they carried for their own food; and they would run over
the white lands, through the early darkness, bright and happy, and burst
with a shout of joy into their home.

So, on the whole, it was well with them--very well; and Patrasche,
meeting on the highway or in the public streets the many dogs who toiled
from daybreak into nightfall, paid only with blows and curses, and
loosened from the shafts with a kick to starve and freeze as best they
might--Patrasche in his heart was very grateful to his fate, and thought
it the fairest and the kindliest the world could hold. Though he was
often very hungry indeed when he lay down at night; though he had to
work in the heats of summer noons and the rasping chills of winter
dawns; though his feet were often tender with wounds from the sharp
edges of the jagged pavement; though he had to perform tasks beyond his
strength and against his nature--yet he was grateful and content; he did
his duty with each day, and the eyes that he loved smiled down on him.
It was sufficient for Patrasche.

There was only one thing which caused Patrasche any uneasiness in his
life, and it was this. Antwerp, as all the world knows, is full at every
turn of old piles of stones, dark and ancient and majestic, standing
in crooked courts, jammed against gateways and taverns, rising by the