summer noons
But even then they were never heard to lament , either of them . The child 's wooden shoes and the dog 's four legs would trot manfully together over the frozen fields to the chime of the bells on the harness ; and then sometimes , in the streets of Antwerp , some housewife would bring them a bowl of soup and a handful of bread , or some kindly trader would throw some billets of fuel into the little cart as it went homeward , or some woman in their own village would bid them keep some share of the milk they carried for their own food ; and then they would run over the white lands , through the early darkness , bright and happy , and burst with a shout of joy into their home . So , on the whole , it was well with them , very well ; and Patrasche , meeting on the highway or in the public streets the many dogs who toiled from daybreak into nightfall , paid only with blows and curses , and loosened from the shafts with a kick to starve and freeze as best they might , -- Patrasche in his heart was very grateful to his fate , and thought it the fairest and the kindliest the world could hold . Though he was often very hungry indeed when he lay down at night ; though he had to work in the heats of summer noons and the rasping chills of winter dawns ; though his feet were often tender with wounds from the sharp edges of the jagged pavement ; though he had to perform tasks beyond his strength and against his nature , -- yet he was grateful and content : he did his duty with each day , and the eyes that he loved smiled down on him . It was sufficient for Patrasche . There was only one thing which caused Patrasche any uneasiness in his life , and it was this . Antwerp , as all the world knows , is full at every turn of old piles of stones , dark and ancient and majestic , standing in crooked courts , jammed against gateways and taverns , rising by the water 's edge , with bells ringing above them in the air , and ever and again out of their arched doors a swell of music pealing .