In Old Kentucky Part 9

"You can learn a little something about such things if you stay right here," said he. "I'm going to have visitors, sometime before the summer's over, at my camp. My aunt, Miss Alathea, will be here, and our old friend, Colonel Sandusky Doolittle. He's a great horseman."

Instantly the girl showed vivid interest, not, as he had thought she would, in his aunt, Miss Alathea, but in the Colonel from the Bluegra.s.s, who also was a horseman.

"Horseman, is he?" she exclaimed, her eyes alight.

"Yes; he's famous as a judge of horses."

"At them races that they tell about? Oh, I'd like to see one of them races!"

"Yes, he goes to races, everywhere, although he always means to stop immediately after the next one. It has been the races which have kept him poor and kept him single."

"How've they kept him poor?"

He told her about betting, while she listened, wide-eyed with amazement at the mention of the sums involved.

"How've they kept him single?"

"He's been in love with my Aunt Alathea for a good many years, but she won't marry him until he keeps his promise to avoid the race-tracks."

"What makes your aunt hate hawsses?"

"Oh, she loves good horses, but the Colonel always bets, and, as I have said, it keeps him poor. It's the gambling that she hates, and not the horses. Every year he plans to keep away from all horse-racing for her sake; every year he tries to do it, but quite fails."

She laughed heartily. "An' she thinks he loves th' races more than he does her?" she asked. Then, more soberly: "I don't know's I blame her, none. When's she comin'? I'll be powerful glad to see her."

"I don't know just when she's coming, but she's promised me to have the Colonel bring her up here. I want to have her see the beauty of the mountains."

"I'll like him, sure, whether I like her or not."

He was astonished. "But you said you would be sure to love her!"

"Uh-huh; but I'd be surer to like anyone who is as fond of hawsses as you say he is. Why, when I ride--"

"I didn't know you ever rode a horse. I've only seen you on your ox."

"Poor old Buck! It's true, I have been ridin' him, when I felt lazy, lately, but my pony--ah, that's _fun_!"

"Where is he?"

They had started strolling down the trail and were near the pasture bars, where she had left Joe Lorey on the morning of her bath, after having ridden down to them upon her ox.

She hurried to them, now, and, leaning over them, puckered her red lips and sent a shrill, clear whistle out across the pasture. Immediately from a thicket-tangle at the far end of the half-cleared lot appeared a s.h.a.ggy pony, limping wofully, but with ears p.r.i.c.ked forward as a sign of welcome to his mistress.

"Come on, Little Hawss!" she called. "Come on! It hurts, I know, for you to step, but come on, just th' same. I got a turnip for you."

She turned to Layson with an explanation. "He's lame, poor Little Hawss is. Don't know's he'll ever get all right ag'in."

"Oh!" said Layson. "And I didn't even know you had a horse." Horses are less common in the mountains than are oxen, although nearly every mountain farm has one, for riding. Oxen, though, are the section's draught-animals.

"Didn't think I had a hawss?" she said, and laughed. "I'd _die_ without a hawss! Why, they say, here in the mountains, that I'm a good rider.

I've raced all the boys and beat 'em on my Little Hawss."

She petted the affectionate, uncouth little beast and fed him slowly, lovingly. "Little Hawss, before he hurt his hoof, was sure-footed as a deer. Didn't have to be afraid to run him anywhere, on any kind of road at any time of day or night," said she. "Never stumbled, never missed the way, and, while he don't _look_ much--he never did--he could just carry _me_ to suit me! But--well, I don't know as he will ever carry me again!"

Layson, himself a great horse lover, went up to the s.h.a.ggy little beast and petted him. The pony knew a friend instinctively and rubbed his nose against the rough sleeve of his jacket while he munched the turnip.

Madge stooped and lifted the poor beast's crippled foot.

"Looks bad, don't it?" she said anxiously, asking Frank's opinion as an expert.

He looked the bad foot over carefully and shook his head.

"Madge, I am afraid it does," said he. "But wait until the Colonel comes. He'll tell you what to do. No man knows horses better than the Colonel does.

"I've never told you of my horse, have I?" he asked.

"Why, no; you got one, too?"

He drew a long breath of enthusiasm at the mere thought of his greatest treasure. "Such a mare," said he, "as rarely has been seen, even in Kentucky. She's famous now and going to be more so. She's the very apple of my eye."

The girl looked at him wide-eyed with a fascinated interest. "What color is she?"

"Black as night."

"And gentle?"

"Ah, gentle as a dove with friends; but she's not gentle if she happens to dislike a man or woman! Why, if she hates you, keep away from her.

She'll side-step with a cunning that would fool the wisest so's to get a chance for a left-handed kick; she'll bite; she'll strike with her forefeet the way a human fighter would."

"Oh!" said the girl. "Ain't it a pity she's so ugly?"

"I said she's gentle with her friends. She'd no more kick at me than I would kick at her. She knows it. She's intelligent beyond most horseflesh."

"Has she ever won in races?"

"She's won in small events, and great things are expected of her by more folk than I when she gets going on the larger tracks. I'm counting on her for good work this year, after I go home again."

"Ah," sighed the girl, carried quite away by his excited talk about his favorite, "how I'd love to see her run!"

"It's poetry," he granted; "the true poetry of motion."

"And this Cunnel--Cunnel--"

"Colonel Doolittle?"

"Uh-huh. Will he help me, do you s'pose, to get my Little Hawss cured of his lameness?"

"You may count on that."