peace. Here was a possibility of adventure not to be lost for any
consideration. Aunt Jane dropped her pan with a sharp clang; I
gathered up my skirt with its measure of unshelled beans, and together
we rushed to the front of the house.

It was a "solitary horseman," wholly and ludicrously at the mercy of
his steed, a mischievous young horse that had never felt the bridle
and bit of a trainer.

"It's that red-headed boy of Joe Crofton's," chuckled Aunt Jane.
"Nobody'd ever think he was born in Kentucky; now, would they? Old Man
Bob Crawford used to say that every country boy in this state was a
sort o' half-brother to a horse. But that boy yonder ain't no kin to
the filly he's tryin' to ride. There's good blood in that filly as
sure's you're born. I can tell by the way she throws her head and uses
her feet. She'll make a fine saddle-mare, if her master ever gets hold
of her. Jest look yonder, will you?"

The horse had come to a stand; she gave a sudden backward leap, raised
herself on her hind legs, came down on all fours with a great clatter
of hoofs, and began a circular dance over the smooth road. Round she
went, stepping as daintily as a maiden at a May-day dance, while the
rider clung to the reins, dug his bare heels into the glossy sides of
his steed, and yelled "whoa," as if his salvation lay in that word.
Then, as if just awakened to a sense of duty, the filly ceased her
antics, tossed her head with a determined air, and broke into a brisk,
clean gallop that would have delighted a skilled rider, but seemed to
bring only fresh dismay to the soul of Joe Crofton's boy. His arms
flapped dismally and hopelessly up and down; a gust of wind seized his
ragged cap and tossed it impishly on one of the topmost boughs of the
Osage-orange hedge; his protesting "whoa" voiced the hopelessness of
one who resigns himself to the power of a dire fate, and he
disappeared ingloriously in a cloud of summer dust. Whereupon we
returned to the prosaic work of bean-shelling, with the feeling of
those who have watched the curtain go down on the last scene of the
comedy.

"I declare to goodness," sighed Aunt Jane breathlessly, as she stooped
to recover her pan, "I ain't laughed so much in I don't know when. It
reminds me o' the time Sam Amos rode in the t'u'nament." And she began
laughing again at some recollection in which I had no part.

"Now, that's right curious, ain't it? When I set here talkin' about
fairs, that boy comes by a