It was much more pleasant for Clare to be with his master than with
his mistress, but he fared the worse for it in the house. The woman's
dislike of the boy must find outlet; and as, instead of flowing all
day long, it was now pent up the greater part of it, the stronger it
issued when he came home to his meals. I will not defile my page with
a record of the modes in which she vented her spite. It sought at
times such minuteness of indulgence, that it was next to impossible
for any one to perceive its embodiments except the boy himself.

He now came more into contact with the larger animals about the place;
and the comfort he derived from them was greater than most people
would readily or perhaps willingly believe. He had kept up his
relations with Nimrod, the bull, and there was never a breach of the
friendship between them. The people about the farm not unfrequently
sought his influence with the animal, for at times they dared hardly
approach him. Clare even made him useful--got a little work out of him
now and then. But his main interest lay in the horses. He had up to
this time known rather less of them than of the other creatures on the
place; now he had to give his chief attention to them, laying in love
the foundation of that knowledge which afterward stood him in such
stead when he came to dwell for a time among certain eastern tribes
whose horses are their chief gladness and care. He used, when alone
with them, to talk to this one or that about the friends he had
lost--his father and mother and Maly and Sarah--and did not mind if
they all listened. He would even tell them sometimes about his own
father and mother--how the whole sky full of angels fell down upon
them and took them away. But he said most about his sister. For her he
mourned more than for any of the rest. Her screams as the black aunt
carried her away, would sometimes come back to him with such