t come flying down were being pulled up preparatory
to returning at a slow gait to the customary starting-point at the head
of the street, a half-mile away, so that the old-fashioned sleigh was
surrounded by the light, fancy cutters of the rival racers, and old
Jack was shambling awkwardly along in the midst of the high-spirited and
smoking nags that had just come flying down the stretch.

"Hellow, deacon," shouted one of the boys, who was driving a
trim-looking bay, and who had crossed the line at the ending of the
course second only to a pacer that could "speed like a streak of
lightning," as the boys said,--"Hellow, deacon; ain't you going to shake
out old shamble-heels, and show us fellows what speed is to-day?" And
the merry-hearted chap, son of the principal lawyer of the place,
laughed heartily at his challenge, while the other drivers looked at the
great angular horse that, without any check, was walking carelessly
along, with his head held down, ahead of the old sleigh and its churchly
occupants.

"I don't know but what I will," answered the deacon, good-naturedly;
"don't know but what I will, if the parson don't object, and you won't
start off too quick to begin with; for this is New Year's, and a
little extra fun won't hurt any of us, I reckon."

[Illustration: THE DEACON AND PARSON.]

"Do it, do it; we'll hold up for you," answered a dozen merry voices.
"Do it, deacon: it'll do old shamble-heels good to go a ten-mile-an-hour
gait for once in his life, and the parson needn't fear of being
scandalized by any speed you'll get out of him, either;" and the merry
chaps haw-hawed as men and boys will, when every one is jolly and fun
flows fast.

And so, with any amount of good-natured chaffing from the drivers of the
"fast 'uns," and from many that lined the road too,--for the day gave
greater liberty than usual to bantering speech,--the speedy ones paced
slowly up to the head of the street, with old Jack shambling demurely in
the midst of them.

But the horse was a knowing old fellow, and had "scored" at too many
races not to know that the "return" was to be leisurely taken, and,
indeed, he was a horse of independence, and of too even, perhaps of too
sluggish, a temperament, to waste himself in needless action; but he
had the right stuff in him, and hadn't forgotten his early training
either, for when he came to the "turn," his head and tail came up, his
eye brightened, and, with a playful movement of his h