then across another brook, and so into the Back Pasture. Half of
it is pine and hemlock and Spruce, with sumach and little juniper
bushes, and the other half is grey rock and boulder and moss, with
green streaks of brake and swamp; but the horses like it well
enough - our own, and the others that are turned down there to
feed at fifty cents a week. Most people walk to the Back Pasture,
and find it very rough work; but one can get there in a buggy, if
the horse knows what is expected of him. The safest conveyance is
our coupe. This began life as a buckboard, and we bought it for
five dollars from a sorrowful man who had no other sort of
possessions; and the seat came off one night when we were turning a
corner in a hurry. After that alteration it made a beautiful
salting-machine, if you held tight, because there was nothing to
catch your feet when you fell out, and the slats rattled tunes.

One Sunday afternoon we went out with the salt as usual. It was
a broiling hot day, and we could not find the horses anywhere till
we let Tedda Gabler, the bobtailed mare who throws up the dirt with
her big hooves exactly as a tedder throws hay, have her head.
Clever as she is, she tipped the coupe over in a hidden brook before
she came out on a ledge of rock where all the horses had gathered,
and were switching flies. The Deacon was the first to call to her.
He is a very dark iron-grey four-year-old, son of Grandee. He has
been handled since he was two, was driven in a light cart before he
was three, and now ranks as an absolutely steady lady's horse -
proof against steam-rollers, grade-crossings, and street processions.

"Salt!" said the Deacon, joyfully. "You're dreffle late, Tedda."

"Any - any place to cramp the coupe?" Tedda panted. "It weighs