Dixie Hart | Page 9

Ma had to call him to order by putting the family Bible in his
lap and making him read and pray. I couldn't help laughing, as serious
as it was; for while we was on our knees the thought struck me that he
ought to ask the Lord to bless that gypsy and restore his wife to health.
Well, I was right. Early the next morning, after a good night's rest and
plenty of water and feed, we found the hoss lying down. He'd get up
and go about a little whenever we'd prod 'im, but he'd lie down
whenever our backs was turned."
"I've seen hosses like that," Cahews remarked, "and they might as well
be shot."
"That's exactly what Pa decided to do, after two weeks' nursing and
cajoling," Henley laughed. "He come in to the breakfast-table one
morning with his rifle in his clutch, a sort of resigned look in his eyes.
"'What are you going to do, Pa?' I asked him.
"'Why, I see that danged thing has got on one of his lively spells,' he
said, 'and I'm going to shoot him while he's at his best. If there is any
hoss-heaven, he'd make a better appearance like he is now than at any
other time. I've had my fill. The sight of that hoss peeping out betwixt
the bars every day at meal-time and lying on a bed of ease the rest of
the day is driving me crazy. He'll be on his way in a few minutes if I
can shoot straight.'
"'No, don't kill 'im,' I said, my trading blood up. 'Let me ride 'im to
town while he's lively and maybe I can git rid of him. I might get a few
dollars for his hide, and that would be better than having to dig a hole
to put 'im in.'
"'No, don't kill 'im here,' Ma said, for she had a tender heart--God bless
her memory--and so the old man hung his gun up on the rack and went
to eating, almost too mad to swallow. Well, after the meal was over I

saddled the hoss and rid into town at a purty lively gait. It was really
astonishing what a decent trot the thing could take at times. You see, I'd
heard that Tobe Wilks, a big hardware man at Carlton, who had a
plantation in the country, was looking for a hoss, and I thought I'd see
what he'd say to mine. I was jest a boy, but I'd hung around
hoss-swappers enough to know that it never was a good idea to be the
first to propose a trade, and so I hitched at the post in front of Wilks's
store and went in. I bought a pound of tenpenny nails, that I thought
would come in handy in patching fences at home, and while the clerk
was weighing 'em up I saw Tobe leave his chair behind a counter and
go out and walk around the hoss. Finally he come to me and said, said
he:
"'Alf, does your Pa want to sell that stack of bones out there?'
"'He don't,' says I, 'fer the hoss is mine; he gave 'im to me.'
"'Oh, that's it!' said Wilks; 'well, do you want to sell him?'
"'Well, I ain't itchin' fer a trade,' I says, and I paid no more attention to
Wilks, pretending to be looking at some ploughshares in a pile on the
floor, till he come at me again.
"'But you would sell him, wouldn't you?' he asked.
"'Well,' I said, slowlike, as if I had some difficulty in recalling exactly
what we'd been talking about, 'I had sorter thought that a good mule
would do the work I have to do better than a hoss.'
"'What would you take for him?' Wilks come at me again, and he
looked kinder anxious. 'I want a hoss to send out to my plantation.
They are needing one about like yours.'
"'It will take a hundred and fifty of any man's money to buy him,' I says.
'Friend nor foe don't get him for a cent less.'
"Well, we went out to the hoss, and Wilks got astraddle of him, and, sir,
he took him round the square in the purtiest rack you ever saw shuffle

under a saddle. I saw Wilks thought I was his game, for his eyes was
dancing as he lit and hitched.
"'How would a hundred and forty strike you, cash down?' he said.
"'I'm needing the other ten,' I said. 'I'm a one-price man. I know what
I've got in that hoss' (and you bet I did), 'and you can take him or leave
him. I didn't start the talk, nohow.'
"'Well, we won't fight over the ten,' he said, 'but here