ho travelled humbly on the backs of mules, or
trudged the long and dusty way on foot. Gorgeous were the costumes of
the ladies whom the carriages conveyed; elegant the dress of the gay
gentlemen who rode beside the vehicles on prancing steeds, gallant
escorts of Kentucky's lovely womanhood, prepared, especially, to watch
the carriage-horses when the town was reached and guard against
disasters due to their encounter with such disturbing and unusual things
as crowds, brass-bands and other marvels of a great occasion.

Everywhere upon the sidewalks people swarmed like ants, delighted with
the calm perfection of the day, the magnetism of the crowds, the blare
of martial music, the novelty of passing strangers, and, above all, by
the prospect of the great race which, for weeks, had been the theme of
conversation everywhere throughout the section.

In the spacious corridors and big bar-rooms of the city's hostelries the
rich men of the section vied with flashily dressed strangers, in
magnitude of wagers, and the gambling fever spread from these important
centers to the very alleys of the negro quarters. Poor indeed was the
old darkey who could not find two-bits to wager on the race; small,
indeed, the piccaninny who was not wise enough in the sophisticated ways
of games of chance to lay a copper with a comrade or to join a pool by
means of which he and his fellows were enabled to participate in more
important methods of wooing fickle Fortune.

Here and there and everywhere were the piccaninnies from Woodlawn, the
Layson place, crying the virtues of the mare they worshipped and her
owner whom they each and everyone adored, boasting of the wagers they
had made, strutting in the consciousness that ere the moment for the
great race came "Unc" Neb would gather them together to add zest to the
occasion with their brazen instruments and singing. The "Whangdoodles"
were the envy of every colored lad in town who was not of their high
elect, and created, about noon, a great diversion upon one of the main
streets, by gathering, when they were quite certain that their leader
could by no means get at them, and singing on a corner for more coppers
to be wagered on Queen Bess. The shower of coin which soon rewarded
their smooth, well-trained harmonies, burned holes in their pockets,
too, until it was invested in the only things which, on this day, the
lads thought worth the purchasing--tickets on the race in which the
wondrous mare would