We were glad to be back in our own stable, and John was just as glad to see us.
That evening James said, “I wonder who is coming in my place.”
“Little Joe Green from the lodge,” said John.
“Little Joe Green! Why, he’s a child!”
“He is fourteen and a half. He is small, but he is quick and willing and kind-hearted, and the master wants to give him a chance. I said I would try him for six weeks.”
“Six weeks! It will be six months before he is any use. It will make a lot of work for you, John.”
“Well,” said John with a laugh, “work and I are very good friends. I don’t often talk about myself, James, but I’ll tell you how I see these things. I was just as old as Joe when my father and mother died of a fever and left me and my disabled sister Nelly alone in the world. I didn’t earn enough to keep us both, and she would have gone to the workhouse. But the mistress found a room for her and was like a mother to her. And the master took me into the stable under old Norman, the coachman then, who was like a father to me. When he died, I took his place. So I am not the man to look down on a little boy and disappoint a good, kind master.”
“Then you don’t agree with the saying ‘Everybody look after himself, and take care of number one’?” asked James.
“No, indeed! Where would Nelly and I be if the master and the mistress and old Norman had only taken care of number one? And where would Black Beauty and Ginger be if you had only thought of number one? Burnt to death! No, Jim, that is a selfish saying, whoever uses it.”
James laughed, but his voice was thick when he said, “You have been my best friend, after my mother. I hope you won’t forget me.”
“No, lad, never!” said John.
The next day Joe came to learn all he could before James left. He was too short to groom Ginger and me, so James taught him on Merrylegs. Merrylegs did not like being “pulled about by a boy who knows nothing”, as he said, but by the end of the second week he told me quietly that he thought the boy would turn out well.
At last the day came when James had to leave. “I am leaving so much behind,” he said: “my mother, and you, and a good master and mistress, and the horses, and my old Merrylegs.”
“Cheer up, lad,” said John. “You’ll make friends there, and your mother will be proud of you.”
Everyone was sorry to lose James. Merrylegs missed him so much that for several days he hardly ate. But Joe worked hard to learn, and John was quite pleased with him.