  Produced by Al Haines. [image] Cover art [image] I WAS NEVER SO HAPPY (Page JACK BALLINGTON BY JOHN TROTWOOD MOORE AUTHOR OF "OLD MISTIS;" "A SUMMER HYMNAL;" ILLUSTRATIONS BY GEORGE GIBBS THOMAS LANGTON Copyright, 1911, by TO THE TWINS CONTENTS I THE HEIR OF THE BLUEGRASS CHAPTER I II "A TWILIGHT PIECE" I III THE HICKORY'S SON I IV THE BURGEONING I ILLUSTRATIONS FOREWORD I am the child of the Centuries. I am the son of the Æons which were. I have always been, and I shall always be. To make me it has taken fire, star-dust, and the Spirit of God—the lives of billions of people, and the lights of a million suns. I have grown from sun and star-dust to the Thing-Which-Thinks. It were the basest ingratitude if I were not both thankful to God and proud of my pedigree. What has come to me has been good; what shall come will be better: for I am Evolution, and I grow ever to greater things. Life has been good; death will be better; for it is the cause of all my past, making for a still greater future. And this I know, not from Books nor from Knowledge, but from the unafraid, never silent voice of Instinct within me, which is God. My debt to the past is great: I can never, in full, repay it; for they, my creditors, passed with it. They left me a world beautiful: shall I make it a world bare? They left a world bountiful: shall I leave it blazed and barren to the sands of death? I am in debt to the Past. Shall the Future present the bill to find that I have gone to my grave a bankrupt? Find that I have wantonly laid waste the land, leaving no root of wild flower, no shade of tree, no spring that falleth from the hills? Shall I destroy their trees for the little gain it may bring to my short Life-tenantry? Shall I make of their land a desert by day and a deluge by night? Shall I stamp with the degeneracy of gullies my own offspring, and scar with the red birth-mark of poverty the unborn of my own breed? I live, charged with a great Goodness from the Past: I can die, paying it, only by a greater Kindness for the Future. I THE HEIR OF THE BLUEGRASS JACK BALLINGTON, CHAPTER I SOUL-DREAMS AND THE SOIL Those who live near to Nature learn much: for it is only by living close to her that we learn from her. The best advice ever given on longevity was from the cheery old gentleman who said: "To live long, live naturally; eat what you want, and walk on the sunny side of the street." School children think that some wise man made all the hard rules of grammar that grown-up folks try to teach them. They do not know that the child-man learned to talk first and that the rules were made from his speech. It is like the simple people at the circus who think the trained horse is dancing to the music; it is the music that is dancing to him. From the facts of life we draw our rules just as the scholars made rules of grammar from the facts of language. Nature is the One great Fact. I was thinking of one of her facts the other day—she has so many—but one I had noticed very plainly: the man who lives close to her is an optimist. Let the farmer fail year after year, and still he plants, hoping. Let the merchant fall behind one year and he is shaken; another year, and he quits. One season of deep water-hauling sends the fisherman home to his fields. When the wild game vanishes the pioneer hunter becomes the pioneer farmer. The merchant, the lawyer, the doctor,—there never was one who did not dream, betimes, over his books, that he would yet live to retire and till his acres. Every failure in life goes back to the soil for a new start. That is the fact; now for the rule. It is this: God intended that man should be, first of all, a soil-worker. And tilling the soil includes not only planting, but bringing all growing and living things thereon to strength. Rearing things on the soil is man's natural vocation, since neither drought, nor flood, nor failure, can shut out from his heart that instinct of hope which has come down through so many centuries of soil-loving ancestors. The hoping instinct has been housed in him so long that it is part of his heredity. Maritime nations found empires, but not religions. Religions come from the soil. Men, living in the open, watching their flocks by night, find in the eternal wonder of the soul-questioning stars that which satisfies their own souls. Imagine fighting Rome founding a religion! Or bookish Greece! Or the trading Saxon! Religions come from mangers. All great soul-dreams were born amid flocks and herds. This is my own story, and the telling of it shall be in my own way. And as I am not a writer, but a forester, doubtless my telling will be all awry. For I have seen enough of life to know that the generals who have won in the field of fiction, like the generals who have won in the field of fact, have won because they have had the drilling. And in my case the drilling has been only trees—trees, and their children, the flowers. CHAPTER II LITTLE SISTER This is my story, as I said, and the telling of it must be in my own way. That is why I am giving this chapter first—because it happened first—four years before the real story began. Another reason is that in the telling of it I can set forth the characters of the old general, my grandsire, who believed in fighting; of my Aunt Lucretia, his daughter, who believed in pedigrees; of Eloise, the beautiful and daring one, who believed in dancing and riding and shooting, and in making those who loved her miserable; of Colonel Goff, an Englishman, who believed in horses and hounds; and of Little Sister, who believed in Uncle Jack; and even of myself, Uncle Jack, who believed in trees. Little Sister is the three-year-old daughter of my brother Ned Ballington, who, with his lovely wife, Thesis, and his major domo, Uncle Wash (a colored gentleman of the Old School), and his other live things and birds, resides on the farm adjoining ours. But Little Sister, whose real name is Mildred, and her brother, two years younger, who was baptized Edward, but whom Uncle Jack had nicknamed Captain Skipper, because nothing could keep him still, spent the most of their time at The Home Stretch, the home of their great grandsire, General John Rutherford, where also lived their Aunt Lucretia, and Eloise, and Uncle Jack. It was either very hot or very cold on those days when Uncle Jack did not drive them over to spend the day, and maybe a night, too. Once in a great while the footing was too slippery for the pony. But these omissions occurred, at the most, perhaps twice each summer and winter; for the heart of the Middle Basin, that beautiful bluegrass country in which they live, beats in the breast of Summer. John Rutherford, the First, built The Home Stretch in 1800. It adjoined the lands of Andrew Jackson, and the very spirit of the old fighter hangs over the place. For John Rutherford had loved him—nay, had lived, fought, and died for him—at New Orleans. There is a tradition that Old Hickory himself named the place—in fact, that John Rutherford owned it for no other reason than that his horse beat Andrew Jackson's in the home stretch. The bet was a thousand acres of land. The race track may still be seen at Clover Bottom, just across the way, where Stone's River makes a bend around a hundred acres of land, rich as ever the crow made a granary of, and as level as Chalmette Plain, where Jackson's riflemen stopped the British before New Orleans. Little Sister was a fair, frail, sensitive little tot. Her bright blue eyes, pale pink face and dark brown hair kept one thinking of full summer moons rainbowed at night. And her temper—she was fire and powder there—a flash, maybe a clenched small fist, a small foot brought down in sudden scorn—an explosion—and then she was sobbing for forgiveness in your arms. That was Little Sister. Once she slapped Aunt Lucretia in the face. "I can't see where in the world she gets her temper from," Aunt Lucretia said; "for if there is an angel on earth it is Thesis, her mother. General Rutherford" (Aunt Lucretia always called her father General Rutherford), "this child ought to be spanked till she is conquered. Her mother sends her over here expecting us to make her behave." "Tut, tut, Madam," said the General (he always called his daughter madam), "that is not the way to break colts. That kind of a conquering would spoil her. She'll need all of that temper, when she knows enough to control it, to get through life and land anywhere near the wire first. Besides, with her sensitiveness, don't you see she is suffering now more than if we had punished her? If she were a plug now" (for the General hated nothing so much as a plug), "she would never be sorry till you made her sorry with a beating. But the conscience of a thoroughbred beats hickory, and gentleness, Madam, is away ahead of blows in everything but war—and we are not fighting now." Then to make sure that she did not get a whipping, Uncle Jack, who was eighteen and preparing for college, would snatch her away from Aunt Lucretia and take her out to see the colts. At sight of them her troubles vanished; for her love of all live things which are born on a stock farm was as deep as her Ballington blood. A great burst of sunshine would spread over her conscience-stricken face. "O Uncle Jack, aren't they just too sweet for anything? Do let me get down this minute and hug them—every one!" And Uncle Jack would let her, if he had to catch each colt himself. The clear-cut way she talked English! And her great heart of motherhood! These were the two wonderful things in a tot so small. It was not difficult to see where she inherited the first. But how could so tiny a thing have such a great mother-heart? She loved everything little—everything just born on the place. The fact that anything in hair, hide or feathers had arrived was a cause of jollification. "O do let me see the dear little things!" would be her cry. And she generally saw them if Uncle Jack were around. One day they missed her from the house and Uncle Jack quickly tracked her to the cow barn. It had occurred to him that the day before he had shown her the Short-Horn's latest edition, a big, double-jointed, ugly, hungry male calf, who slept all day in a bedded stall, a young Hercules in repose, and only waked up long enough to wrinkle his huge nose and sleep again. There Uncle Jack found her. She had climbed over the high stall-gate to pet and coddle the great calf. She had placed her own beautiful string of beads around his tawny neck. "Come out of there," laughed Uncle Jack. "What do you see pretty about that great ugly calf?" "O Uncle Jack," and she sighed affectedly, "I am truly sorry for him. He is not pretty, to be sure—and so I have given him my beads. And he doesn't seem to be very bright, nor at all well mannered, poor dear—but—but," she added reflectively—"he has a lovely curly head and he seems to be such a healthy child!" On another occasion they missed her. It was nearly night. Everybody started out in alarm to hunt for her. Aunt Lucretia was the first to find her, coming from the brood-sow's lot. "Where in the world have you been, child?" she asked as she picked her up. "Playing with the little yesterday-pigs," said Little Sister. "And Aunt Lucretia, I ought to have come home sooner, I know, but I kissed one of the cunningest of the little pigs good night, and all the others looked so hurt, and squealed so because I didn't kiss them too, I just had to catch and kiss every one before they would go to sleep." Inheritance had played a tremendous part in Little Sister. Most children crow and lisp and talk in divers languages before they learn to talk English; while some never learn at all. But not so with her. The first long word she attempted was perfectly pronounced. The first sentence she put together was grammatically correct. The correctness of her language for one so small made it sound so quaint that Uncle Jack had her always talking. Her earnestness and intensity only added to her originality. Pete was a little darky on the farm whose chief business was to entertain Little Sister when everything else failed. His repertoire consisted of all the funny tricks of a monkey. But his two-star performances were racking like Deacon Jones' old clay-bank pacer and playing 'possum. Little Sister never tired of having Pete do these two things. They were very comical. Everybody knew Deacon Jones, with his angular, sedate, solemn way of riding, and the double-shuffling, twisting, cork-screw gait of the old pacer. The ludicrous motions of the pacer had struck Pete early in life, and he had soon learned to get down on all-fours and make Deacon Jones's horse ashamed of himself. The imitation was so perfect that Ned and Uncle Jack used to call in their friends to see the show, which consisted of Pete's doing the racking act, while Little Sister, astraddle of his back, with one hand in his shirt collar, and the other wielding a hickory switch, played the Deacon. One evening, before company, Pete had paced around so many times that he was leg-weary. Little Sister, astride his back, whacked him in the flanks vigorously and exclaimed: "Come, pace along there, damn you, or I'll put a head on you!" The company nearly fell out of their chairs, while Thesis blushed and Ned stammered an apology. Then he remembered that only a few days before he had heard his grandsire, the swearing old Indian Fighter, make the same remark to Pete for being slow about bringing his shaving water; and he knew that if Little Sister was proud of anyone, it was of her great grandsire, who fought valiantly with "Stonewall" in the Valley. Ned and Thesis gave the old gentleman a talk, and begged him to be careful of his oaths in the presence of Little Sister: but when he had heard it, he laughed more than he had laughed for a year, and straightway proceeded to buy her a doll that cost a gold eagle, and was as large, and nearly as beautiful, as Little Sister herself. The spring that Little Sister was four years old, the General, as was his custom every morning before breakfast, went out to the barn and paddock to see the brood mares and colts. A stately brown mare, ankle-deep in blue grass, stood in the paddock nearest the house, under a great maple tree, its falling branches almost concealing her. She turned every now and then in a nervous, unhappy way, and, going up to the brown, new-born weakling of a colt lying in the blue grass, and which seemed unable to rise, she lowered her shapely head till her nozzle caressed it and then she whinnied softly. Something was very badly wrong and she knew it. The old General had been looking on for quite a while, frowning. When the General was sorry for anything he expressed his sympathy by a nervous strutting and swearing. When he was angry or fighting—as his battles in Virginia proved—he was as silent as a stone wall, and as staunch. Then he never swore. "The damned little thing's deformed, Jim," he said to the negro stable boy who was standing near. "Poor old Betty," and he rubbed his favorite saddle mare's nose, "she is distressed." There was the sound of fox hunters coming up the pike. The hounds passed first, in a trot, nosing. Then the two hunters rode up to the rock fence where the General stood. One of them rode a docked hunter with ungainly long head and sloping rump and shoulders. Both horse and rider were unmistakably English; the man was middle-aged, portly, and handsome. The other rider was a young man riding a Tennessee saddle horse. "Good morning, General," said the Englishman, saluting, "can't you join us to-day? Thought we'd exercise the pack a bit. The blooming old chap was out last night—over in the hills after a negro's chickens—and we'll take up his trail and have a little chase. Fawncy striking him in that stretch of Stone's River bottom—aw—but we'll have a chase!" "No—no—Goff," said the old General, impatiently, "I'm pestered to death with this little colt. I don't know what to do with it." The hunter glanced over into the paddock. "O that old ambling saddle mare of yours! Aw—you know what we did with them in England—two centuries ago—anything with that Andalusian jennet blood in it—that old pacing gait—killed 'em—aw! exterminated 'em, sir! Always told you so. They're fit for nothing but for old women to ride to church on." The younger man broke out into a boisterous laugh. His face was round and weak, his mouth wide, his eyes insincere, and his laugh was affected and betook of his eyes. "The Colonel's right, Grandpa. Tell Jim to kill it an' come on with us." The old General glanced at him quickly. "Braxton Bragg Rutherford, my son, when you enter West Point you will find it a rule there that very young officers do not try to impress their views on their superiors until asked." "Colonel Goff, suh," he said, turning to the Englishman, "that old mare has carried me for fifteen years and never stumped her toe. Her dam carried me through the Valley campaign with Stonewall Jackson. She helped us chase Banks and Fremont out of God's country. She saved my life once because she could outfoot Yankee cavalry. You were with me and know it. I owe the whole family a debt I can never repay, and suh, I'll be damned if I don't hate to kill her colt." Colonel Goff looked over the fence at the colt lying in the grass. Then he said to the negro, aside: "Pull out its legs, my man—there—that will do. Hold them up!" The legs were knuckled over at the ankles, deformed evidently. When it tried to stand it came down limply in a heap. Colonel Goff turned and, beckoning to the negro, whispered: "Jim, take it into the stall there and destroy it without letting the General know." Then he added in a louder tone, "Come, General, we'll wait till you get your cup of coffee and join us." But the General shook his head. Rough he was and used to war and death, yet this was old Betty's colt. Goff, knowing his stubbornness, saluted, and rode on after the hounds. The old man stood thinking. He examined the deformed limbs again. Very sternly he looked the colt over. Very sternly he reached his conclusion, and once reached it was irrevocable. Jim, knowing, put in apologetically: "Giner'l, hit'll never walk, we'll hafter kill it." "I don't want to see it done, Jim. I'll go in. Po' ole Betty—that she should be played off on like that!" He stroked the mare's neck with a kindly pat, and went in. Breakfast was ready for him. He sat down, abstracted, worried. Uncle Jack, his grandson, eighteen, slender, and slightly lame, and who didn't love to talk of the war, nor the thought of going to West Point, and who wanted always to study about trees and a better way of farming, sat next to Little Sister. The General told him of his misfortune. "It is a great disappointment to me, suh, old Betty, my favorite saddle mare—I've ridden her for fifteen years—the best mare in Tennessee, by gad, suh, the very best! "It's weak, puny and no-count, Jack," he went on as he tested his coffee—"deformed or something in its front, and knuckles over, can't stand up." "That's too bad," said Uncle Jack; "I'll go out after breakfast and see what I can do for it, Grandfather." "No use," said the General, gruffly. "It'll be merciful to destroy it. I've told Jim, too; it'll be better off dead." Little Sister had not seemed to listen, but she had heard. This last remark of her grandsire stopped a spoonful of oatmeal half way to her mouth. The next instant, unobserved, she had slipped from her chair and gone to the barn. "I tell you, Jack, I think this breeding business is a poor lottery," went on the old General after a while. "To think of old Betty, the gamest, speediest, best mare I ever owned—" There were protesting screams from the barn. They were instantly recognized as Little Sister's. Uncle Jack glanced at her empty place, paled, kicked over two chairs and a setter dog which blocked the door, and rushed to the barn. A tragedy was on there. A negro stood in old Betty's stall with an ax in his hand. On some straw in a far corner lay a sorry-looking colt. But it was not alone, for Little Sister stood over it, shaking her tiny fist at the black executioner, and screaming with grief and anger: "You shan't kill this baby colt—you shan't—don't you come in here—don't! How dare you, Jim?" The flash of her keen blue eyes had awed the negro in the doorway. He had stopped, hesitating, in confusion. "Go away, Jim," said Uncle Jack firmly. "Come, Little Sister, let us go back to grandpa." But for once in her life Uncle Jack had no influence over her. She was indignant, grieved. She fairly blazed through her tears and sobs: she would never speak to grandpa again as long as she lived! As for Jim, she would kill him as soon as she got big enough! She wouldn't even speak to Uncle Jack unless he promised her that the baby colt should not be killed! "Poor little colt," she said as she put her arms around its neck and her tears fell over its big, soft eyes, "God sent you last night and they want to kill you to-day." Uncle Jack brushed away a tear himself and, stooping, picked up the colt's feet, one at a time, examining the little filly. Little Sister watched him intently: to her mind Uncle Jack knew everything. The tears were still in her eyes when Uncle Jack looked up quickly and said in his jolliest way: "Hello, Little Sister, this filly is all right! Deformed be hanged! She's sound as a hound's tooth, just weak in her tendons and we can soon fix them. Give her a little time for strength. No, they'll not kill her, little one—" and he caught the little girl up, giving her a hug. The tears gave way to a crackling little laugh. Little Sister was dancing in the straw for joy! What fun it was to help Uncle Jack fix her up! She brought him the cotton batting herself and gravely watched him as he made stays for the weak tendons and bent ankles. Finally, when he had the filly fixed and had called Jim, who held her in his arms to the mother's flank until she had had a good breakfast, the little girl could not keep still. In a burst Of generosity she begged Jim's pardon and said she intended to give him a pair of grandpa's boots that very day. In return for this Jim promptly named the filly "Little Sister." But having once said that the colt was "no-count," the old General refused to notice it. "Po' little thing," said he, a month after it was able to pace around without help from its stays, "po' little thing! What a pity they didn't kill it." But Uncle Jack and Little Sister, with the help of old Uncle Wash, nursed it, petted it and helped old Betty to raise it. And the next spring their reward came in a nervous, high-strung but delicate looking little slip that was indeed a beauty. The General would surely relent now! But those who thought so did not know the old man. He merely glanced at the weanling and remarked again: "The damned little weakling! That old Betty should ever have played off on me like that!" He turned indifferently away. Whereupon both the filly and the little girl turned up their noses behind his back. The fall that the filly was three years old the big county fair came off, with pacing stakes for the best three-year-old. The purse was a thousand dollars, but greater still was the glory! The old General had entered a big colt named Princewood for the stakes. This colt had been carefully trained for two seasons and had already cost his owner more than he was worth. "But it's the reputation I am after, suh," the General said to the driver, "the honor of the thing. Our farm has already taken it twice, you know." Now Uncle Jack was something of a whip himself. He could not ride because of a lame knee, so he became an expert in driving. The old General had failed to notice how all the fall he had been giving Betty's filly special attention with a hot brush now and then. Wrapped up as he was in Princewood's wonderful speed, he had not noticed that Uncle Jack had frequently called for his light road wagon, and that he and Little Sister, now six years old, had taken delightful spins down the shady places in the cool byways, where the footing was good and there was no gravel or stones, and nobody could see them when they asked the high-strung little filly "to step some," as Little Sister expressed it. Then at supper one night, when Colonel Goff had dropped in as he often did, the old General began to brag about Princewood's wonderful speed and of the way in which his favorite grandson, Braxton Bragg, could drive him. "Why, Goff," said the General, "that boy is a wonder! He drove the colt to-day a mile with one hand in 2:25." Uncle Jack winked at Little Sister, and she had to cram her mouth full of peach preserves to keep from laughing. The General saw and guessed there was a joke on him somewhere, and being one of those who loved to joke others, but did not love to be joked himself, he flushed red and began to praise Braxton Bragg openly, hoping it would go home to his other grandson who sat so quietly at the table winking at Little Sister and with something evidently up his sleeve.... "Yes, suh," said the General after a while, "Princewood will simply eat up the field, and Braxton Bragg—ay, there's a boy for you!—he'll be a great soldier some day—Braxton Bragg will simply drive the hoofs off the whole bunch." Then Eloise looked up. Eloise was fifteen and lithe, with her red-gold hair just being put up, and so graceful and beautiful that Little Sister worshipped her, as did also Uncle Jack and Braxton Bragg, and Colonel Goff for that matter. Eloise had caught the wink that Uncle Jack gave, and understood it in an instant. For Eloise knew things, especially about horses. "And you really think Braxton Bragg and Princewood will eat up the field," she said ever so sweetly and respectfully to the old General. "My, I'd like ever so much to take the field end of that," she added indifferently, but winking at Uncle Jack. "My dear," said the old General, "I don't gamble with sweet school girls; but if Princewood fails to make good, I'll just give you that fine Whiteman saddle you've been wanting all the time——" "I can't play a one-sided bet like that; it isn't fair," said Eloise. "I'd like to be as generous as you are, sir, and put up a forfeit. But dear me," and she sighed like the exiled queen in the fairy tale, "I'm dowerless and own nothing." "Good," said Colonel Goff. "Brave girl! now that lets me in. General, just let me take the bet off your hands. Now then, Eloise, I'll take you dowerless—for you are a dower all unto yourself," he said, bowing grandly, "and I'll bet you—mark me now—I'll bet you that new English saddle mare I've just imported, against your own sweet self, that my friend the General's Princewood will win that race!" "It's a go," cried Eloise, rising gracefully and taking his hand, "red-leather-bargain-done-for-ever," she added laughing. The General looked pleased—he showed it in his bland smile and the vigorous nodding of his head. He whispered to Goff: "By gad, Goff, but all joking aside—she'll make you the finest wife alive!" Eloise heard and looked over at Jack with a smile, but Jack's head was down on his breast and there was no smile on his lips. Never remotely—in any way—in his dreams—(and being a poet, he dreamed often) had he thought of Eloise belonging to anyone but him!... It looked as if all the county was there on the fine fall day of the race. It was one of those sweet old country fairs where the yeomanry of the hills and the lassies from the valleys make holiday, and the heifers with polished horns share the glory with the fillies, bedecked with ribbons, and stepping proudly in air to music. The field was a large one; for the purse was rich and the honor even richer. "And Princewood's a prime favorite, suh," chuckled the old General as he walked around, holding by the hand a little girl who went everywhere with him, and who wondered whether, after all, Uncle Jack really knew. And so hearing so much that was braggart of Princewood, she all but lost faith: as is the way of us all if we do not touch, now and then, the shrine of our Truth. Eloise was there, now flirting with the country beaux, and now riding Colonel Goff's saddle mare in the rings for blue ribbons. By two o'clock she had the mare's head-stall full of them, and one big one adorned her own riding whip as "the best lady rider." Seeing her beauty and grace, Colonel Goff murmured to himself: "By gad, but I'll make her Lady Carfax some day." The bell had already rung twice for the race and all the owners and horses were supposed to be preparing to score down, when a new entry drove in. He sat in a spider-framed four-wheeled gentleman's road cart instead of in a sulky, which would make him at least four seconds slow in a race like that. And he wore a cutaway business suit and a soft felt hat, and not a gaudy jockey cap and silk coat as did Braxton Bragg, who drove Princewood and was bragging about what he was going to do. The newcomer nodded familiarly to the starting judge and paced his nervous looking little filly up the stretch. "Who is that coming into this race in that kind of a thing?" asked the old General of a farmer standing near, for his eyesight was failing him. "Why, General, don't you know yo' own grandson? That's young Jack Ballington," said the man. "The hell you say!" shouted the excited old man. "Why dammit, has Jack gone crazy? He always was a fool!" And he clattered over a bench with his wooden leg and hobbled up the stretch to head off the pair. "By gad, suh, Jack," he shouted, "are you going to drive in this race?" Jack nodded and smiled, while he soothed the nervous little filly with gentle words. "And what's that little rakish looking thing you've got there?" "That's Little Sister, Grandfather," he said, good-naturedly. "I'm really just driving her to please our little girl and see how she'll act in company." The old General was amazed, indignant, outraged. "Why, you're the daddy of all damned fools that ever lived!" he blurted. "They'll lose you both in this race! Get off the track, Jack, for God's sake, and don't disgrace old Betty this way—why, that old mare—I've ridden her for fifteen years! Why, I rode her dam clear through the war. She helped chase Banks and Fremont out of the valley—why that little no-count thing—Jack, she'll drop dead if you extend her." Jack smiled. "It's just for a little fun, Grandfather, and to please the little girl; for it's her pet, you know. I'll just trail them and if she's too soft I'll pull out the second heat. But she's better than you think," he added indifferently. The old General expostulated, threatened; but Jack laughed good-naturedly and drove off. Then the old General repented. It was comically pathetic to hear him call out: "Jack, Jack, don't tell anybody it's old Betty's colt, will you? Promise me, boy. Why, I rode her for fifteen years. I rode her dam all through the valley of Virginia with Stonewall Jackson." But Uncle Jack drove on, chuckling to himself: "I'll bet ten to one he'll be telling it before I do." When the little filly got into company she was positively gay. She forgot all about herself, and like great people the world over she lost her nervous ways when the great effort was on, and went away at the go of the starter with a rush that almost took Uncle Jack's breath from him. He pulled her quickly down. "Ho—ho, Little Sister—if you do that again you'll give us all dead away, and that will spoil the fun." He glanced quickly around to see if anyone saw him. But the crowd were all busy watching Princewood. So Uncle Jack trailed behind, the very last of the bunch, but with the little filly fighting indignantly for her head all the way. Nobody seemed to see them at all, that is, nobody but a little girl, who clung nervously to the old General's middle finger, and wondered, with her child's faith fiercely battered, if her Uncle Jack, her Uncle Jack who knew it all and could do anything, if he, the mighty, was really going to tumble from his lofty throne in her mind? Then she got behind the General's big Prince Albert coat tail, and wiped away two nervous little tears. Princewood had paced in way ahead. She stuck her fingers in her ears, so that she could not hear the shouts, and her little nervous lips closed tight with indignant shame. When she took them out the shouting was over, but she heard the old General say, "Wasn't it a walkover? That fool grandson of mine has always made me tired. I don't believe the little thing can go round again." This cut into the soul of the little girl. She pretended to go after a glass of the big red lemonade that they sold under a near-by tree; but really she went to cry in the dark hall under the grand stand and to wipe her tears on the frills of the pretty little petticoat Mother Thesis had made for her just to wear to the fair. There was one who knew, however, because she really had horse sense. She was riding a beautiful English saddle mare across the infield, and she looked like a young Diana in her dark blue riding suit, and she sat her horse like the Centaur's wife. As she rode across the grassy infield, Braxton Bragg came up, and catching her mare by the bit, stopped her short. His little round, weak face was focused into a smile. Eloise flushed, vexed that he should seize a moving mare by the bit, for it is against all good horsemanship to do it; just as one pilot would resent another interfering with his wheel. She looked down on him without a smile. "Say, Eloise," he said as one who seeks a compliment, "how do you like the way I did it?" Long ago Eloise had said of Braxton Bragg: "Answer a fool according to his folly." Therefore she smiled dryly now and said, "Beautifully. How entirely and completely you do fill that sulky seat, Braggy." Braxton Bragg, not knowing what satire was, took this for a compliment, and smiled again. Then, encouraged, he whispered low to her: "You've never given me a chance to show you just how much I could do for love of you, Eloise." "Oh," she answered, ever so sweetly. "Yes," he sighed affectedly, trying to look love-lorn, cocking his head with affected sadness and succeeding only in looking ridiculous. "Oh," she said sweetly again. If he had had sense he would have seen the sweetness was for ends of her own. "Oh, how sweet of you and how cruel of me, Braggy." Her tone was very clear. If he had only looked down the past he might have remembered that whenever she had called him Braggy she had been planning to do him. He sighed again, which shut his mouth the second time. Eloise, demurely, but inwardly nearly bursting, did likewise. "Well?" he asked, expectantly. "Yes," said Eloise encouragingly. "I mean—can't—I now?" "There's never a better time than the present, Braggy, you remember the school books say." Then she reached down and, pretending earnestness, said: "You've got a walk-over, it's plain. It's yours for the asking, Braggy. And so—well—it's big odds I'm giving you, Braggy," and she laughed like a wood thrush, "but if you win that race I'll be yours alone henceforth and forever, Braggy." He paled, taking her hand, which fell sidewise down past her saddletree, in his. "Oh Eloise—dearest,"—he started bookishly, but ended in his own way, which was mentally unlearned: "Gee—but I'll win or bust!" "And if you don't," began Eloise, ever so indifferently. "Of course you will," she smiled; "but if you don't, Braggy, now dear, why you'll just send me that set of seal-skins for that fashionable hennery I'm going to at Washington?" "Good! Good!" he cried boisterously. "What odds you give me! You against a hundred dollar seal-skin! Oh, my, let me get busy!" And he rushed off, smirking back sillily at her. "A saddle mare, a saddle, and a set of sealskins all in one day. Well, that's going some," Eloise chuckled as she rode up to the fence where Uncle Jack stood. Reaching down from her saddle, she tapped him on the shoulder. He looked up into her laughing eyes, and flushed, for he had always loved her. "Jack, Jack, you are a dandy! You did it beautifully! O, the stride of that rush before you called her down! Say, how do you like my mare? Isn't she a beauty?" "If you say so," he said slowly, testing her, "I'll lay up the next heat; let him win." He had remembered Goff's bet. She flushed. Then she rapped him over the shoulder lightly with her whip. "Why, Jack, that would be horrible! Do you think I'd have made the bet if I hadn't believed in you, loved you, brother mine?" Jack flushed. "Do you, Eloise—do you—" Eloise laughed. "Like a sister. Aunt Lucretia says we've got to marry each other, so what's the use of my kicking? But listen—now—say, Jack—you've played right into my hand. I'll need that Whiteman saddle for this beautiful thing. So hold up a while till I ride over and close that bet with the General. Now is my time! He's crazy about that great lobster of his and I could win The Home Stretch on this bet if I had anything to put up." She wheeled her horse, threw a kiss down at Jack, and galloped off to find the General. When Little Sister got back from her cry the General was gone. He was over at the table talking to Uncle Jack. "Now, Jack," said he, "don't disgrace old Betty any more. Why, I rode her fifteen years. I rode her—" Uncle Jack had always been so quiet that it was a distinct surprise to the old General when he showed an unsuspected grit and gameness. "Hang her old dam, Grandfather, and your cursed old war in Virginia! Drop dead, will she? Well, sir, you are likely to see something drop yourself before this heat is over." And he turned on his heels and walked off. The old General looked at him astounded, and with positive admiration. "By gad," he said to himself, "he's either crazy or got more sense than us all. By gad, to think of him getting mad and having grit like that! He may make a soldier yet," and he chuckled with pride. Now Uncle Jack meant business. He changed his cart for a sulky. Again they got the word. Princewood, having the pole and all advantage, flashed ahead in his big lumbering pace, Little Sister in the very rear, struggling for her head. Slowly, gradually, Uncle Jack let her have it. Steadily, like moving machinery set in grooves of steel, she came up on them, relentlessly, mercilessly cutting them down, one after another. At the half there was nothing but Princewood ahead and no one even saw her yet, for the shout was: "Princewood! Princewood!" This heat would make the race his. "Princewood's got 'em, General!" yelled a countryman, his mouth so wide open from excitement that tobacco juice ran down his chin whiskers and into his shirt collar. "Princewood's got 'em! There's nothin' that kin head 'im!" "He's got 'em!" yelled the partisans of the old General, packed solidly around him and cackling with half crazy joy. "Now jes watch sum'thin' drop." But a girl sitting on her horse and looking over the crowd saw it differently. A daring, knowing, triumphant smile lingered around her mouth. And not in heaven, nor in the star-lighted lake below, ever shone two stars rippling into little wavelets of glint and glory like those in the eyes of her. The General, seeing her, shouted: "Yes, watch it drop! No saddle for you, young lady!" Down went her keen, fun-loving eyes to those of the old soldier. "It's dropped already, General—see! I own that saddle now!" Something had happened. The little filly felt the reins relax and a kindly chirrup come from her driver. In a twinkling, in the whir of a spinning wheel, she was up with the big fellow, half frightened at her own speed, half doubting that it was really she who did it, half sobbing with the keen thrill of it, like a great singer who for the first time hears her own voice filling a great hall. "Princewood! Princewood!" shouted the crowd around their idol, the General, "Princewood's broke the record!" The old General rose in happy anticipation: "Yes, boys, it looks like the record is busted by—" Here his jaw dropped as if paralyzed; for his trained eye took in the situation and the word died in his mouth. What was that little bay thing that had so gamely collared his big horse? Who is that quiet-looking fellow in the soft hat handling the reins like a veteran and leading the march like Stonewall's Foot-Cavalry in the Valley? His grandson, Jack, was in a cart; this man sat in a sulky. And Jack was driving a little limp-waisted, hollow-flanked— "Who the devil—" he began, when someone clinging to his middle finger looked up, great smiles chasing tears down her cheeks and so excited she could scarcely breathe. "Why, it's Little Sister, Grandpa! Now isn't she just too sweet for anything?" The next instant the little filly laughed in the big pacer's face, who had quit in a tangled break, as much as to say: "You big braggart duffer, have you quit already?" and then, like a homing pigeon loosed for the first time, she sailed away from the field. "Princewood—Princewood has broke the record—" shouted the farmer who hadn't caught on and was shouting for Princewood, but was looking at the champion pumpkin in the window of the Agricultural Hall. And then the old General lost his head and what little religion he had left. For he jumped on a bench, his wooden leg rattling as he danced up and down, like a flock of goats in a barn loft, and this is what the town crier in the courthouse window, a mile away, heard him yelling: "Damn Princewood! Damn the record! It's Little Sister—Little Sister—my own mare—old Betty's filly. I rode her fifteen years! I rode her dam—" "Oh—" sang out mockingly a beautiful girl, sitting her horse beside him, with a laugh that sounded like a wood thrush's. "But I've won a saddle and a seal-skin cloak and the sweetest mare in the world! Say, Braggy," for Braxton Bragg just then drove in, the last of the whole procession—"that engagement is all off, isn't it?" Then Uncle Jack, who had stopped and got out of the sulky, came up, his face aglow. And she, her eyes still fired to starry beauty, leaned from the saddle and kissed him. "You darling Jack, how can I ever get even for this?" "I said he'd be telling about it first," said Uncle Jack, wagging his head at the crowd, where the old General stood telling them that it was he who had bred the great little filly and that it was his old mare who was the dam of her! "And the little old no-count thing did play off on you sure enough, didn't she, Grandpa?" came from the tear-eyed tot beside him, so naively in earnest and telling such a plain unvarnished truth that even the old General's partisans had to wink and nudge each other as they walked off. The old General laughed as he picked her up and said: "And here's the little girl that saved her, gentlemen, the smartest girl in Tennessee; and she's got more horse sense than her old granddaddy!" There was one more heat, of course; but it was only a procession, and those behind—and that meant the field—cannot swear to this day which way Little Sister went.... |
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