MOBILE DIGITAL LIBRARY - SOCIETY OF YOUNG NIGERIAN ...

washed and rubbed and bandaged, they talked together, mingling the Sergeant'strenchantly humorous common sense with the Corporal's mellow philosophy. But mostlyit was the Corporal that spoke, for twenty-four hours is a fair working day for a Sergeantas well as a Troop horse."I believe in my soul," said the Sergeant, "that if a man rode into this stable with his twoarms shot off at the shoulder, you'd make him groom his horse with his teeth and his toesfor a couple of hours before you'd let him hunt a doctor.""Well," rejoined Corporal Richardson, in his soft Southern tongue, "and what if I did?Even if that man died of it, he'd thank me heartily afterward. You know, when you and Iand the rest of the world, each in our turn, come to Heaven's gate, there'll be St. Peterbefore it, with the keys safe in his pocket. And over the shining wall behind—from theinside, mind you—will be poking a great lot of heads—innocent heads with innocenteyes—heads of horses and of all the other animals that on this earth are the friends ofman, put at his mercy and helpless."And it's clear to me—over, John! so, boy!—that before St. Peter unlocks the gate for asingle one of us, he'll turn around to that long row of heads, and he'll say:—"'Blessed animals in the fields of Paradise, is this a man that should enter in?'