There was a silence which Jason struggled in vain to break.
Then a young fellow who carried a buggy whip and smoked a cigar said, "How does the doctoring go, Jason?"
"Well, thanks," returned Jason, looking at the young fellow, intently. It was Billy Ames, he of the striped pants.
Back through Jason's heart, until now strangely softened by the happenings of the past few days, surged the accumulated bitterness of his poverty-stricken youth. He turned abruptly and left the store.
His mother was watching for him, anxiously. "Jason, Pilgrim had an accident. He's got a frightful cut on his right fore shoulder. He must have got caught on a nail somehow."
The big gray was standing stolidly in his stall. Mrs. Wilkins held the candle while Jason examined him. On the right fore shoulder was a great three-cornered tear from which the skin hung in a bloody fold.
"I'll have to sew it up." Jason was all surgeon now. "Do you think he'll stand still for us?"
"Stand still," replied Jason's mother, indignantly. "Why, he'll know exactly what you are doing, and why."
"All right then. You get me some clean rags and a darning-needle and I'll get the rest of the things I'll need."
In a few moments the operation was well in hand.
Pilgrim kept his ears back and his eyes on his mistress. He breathed heavily, but otherwise he did not stir. He was a large horse, with a small, intelligent head and a mighty chest. Jason's mother held the candle with one hand while she stroked the big gray's nose with the other.
"Be careful, Jason, do!" she said softly.
Jason grunted. "You keep him from biting or kicking and I'll do my share," he said.
"Pilgrim bite!" cried Jason's mother indignantly.
Again Jason grunted, working swiftly, with the skill of trained and accustomed fingers. The candle flickered on his cool young face, on his black hair and on his long, strong, surgeon's fingers. It flickered too on his mother's sweet lips, on her tired brown eyes and iron-gray hair. It put high-lights on the cameo at her throat and made a grotesque shadow of her hoop-skirts on the stable wall.
Finally Jason straightened himself with a sigh and wiped his hands on a towel.
"That's a good job," he said. "Must be some bad spikes here or in the pasture fence to have given him that rip. I'll hunt them up tomorrow.--Get over there!"