Caroline's face clouded with sympathy.
"Did he die?" she ventured.
"No," he said, shortly; "no, he didn't die. He's alive. He couldn't
stand my ways. I tried to stay in school and--and all that, but soon
as spring came I had to be off. So the last time, he told me we had
to part, him and me."
"What was his name?" she asked gently.
The boy jerked his head toward the dog.
"_That's_ his name," he said, "William Thayer." A little frown
gathered on Caroline's smooth forehead; she felt instinctively the
cloud on all this happy wandering. The spring had beckoned, and he
had followed, helpless at the call, but something--what and how
much?--tugged at his heart; its shadow dimmed the blue of the
April sky.
He shrugged his shoulders with a sigh; the smile came again into
his gray eyes and wrinkled his freckled face.
"Oh, well, let's be jolly," he cried, with a humorous wink. "The
winter's comin' soon enough!" and he burst into a song:
"There was a frog lived in a well,
Kitty alone, Kitty alone;
There was a frog lived in a well;
Kitty alone and I!"
His voice was a sweet, reedy tenor; the quaint old melody delighted
Caroline.
"This frog he would a-wooing ride,
Kitty alone, Kitty alone.
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