oung horse named Tom Hal. Every body
knows about him now, but God told me about him fust.

"Then I knowed jes' as well as I am settin' in this buggy that that
colt was gwinter give me back my little home an' a chance in life. Of
course, I told everybody 'bout it an' they all laughed at me--jes'
like they all laughed at Noah an' Abraham an' Lot an' Moses, an' if I
do say it--Jesus Christ. But thank God it didn't pester me no more'n
it did them."

"Well, the colt come ten years ago--an' I named him Ben Butler--cause
I hated old Ben Butler so. He had my oldest son shot in New Orleans
like he did many other rebel prisoners. But this was God's colt an'
God had told me to love my enemies an' do good to them that did
wrong to me, an' so I prayed over it an' named him Ben Butler, hopin'
that God 'ud let me love my enemy for the love I bore the colt. An'
He has."

Bud shook his head dubiously.

"He showed me I was wrong, Bud, to hate folks, an' when I tell you of
po' Cap'n Tom an' how good Gen. Butler was to him, you'll say so,
too.

"From the very start Ben Butler was a wonder. He came with fire in
his blood an' speed in his heels.

"An' I trained him. Yes--from the time I was Gen. Travis' overseer I
had always trained his hosses. I'm one of them preachers that
believes God intended the world sh'ud have the best hosses, as He
intended it sh'ud have the best men an' women. Take all His works, in
their fitness an' goodness, an' you'll see He never 'lowed for a
scrub an' a quitter anywhere. An' so when He gave me this tip on Ben
Butler's speed I done the rest.

"God gives us the tips of life, but He expects us to make them into
the dead cinches.

"Oh, they all laughed at us, of course, an' nicknamed the colt Mister
Isaacs, because, like Sarah's son, he came in answer to prayer. An'
when in his two-year-old form, I led him out of the stable one cold,
icy day, an' he was full of play an' r'ared an' fell an' knocked down
his hip, they said that 'ud fix Mister Isaacs.

"But it didn't pester me at all. I knowed God had done bigger things
in this world than fixin' a colt's hip, an' it didn't shake my faith.
I kept on prayin' an' kept on trainin'.

"Well, it soon told. His hip was down, but it didn't stop him from
flyin'. As a three-year-old he paced the Nashville half mile track in
one-one flat, an' though they offered me then an' there a thousand
dollars for Ben Butler, I told 'em no,--he was God's colt an' I
didn't need