THE CALL OF A DISTANT PAST 271 



excitement. I knew all the rules and regulations, 

 and the money prizes in sight seemed to me enor- 

 mous. You can rest assured, dear reader, that 

 those pigs did not suffer for lack of food during 

 those wonderful weeks of preparation. Scrubbed? 

 Well, I should be almost ashamed to tell you how 

 many times a week we climbed into those pens 

 armed with brushes and hot "suds"! We ran a 

 regular "beauty parlor" for our coming champions. 

 And at last it seemed to us the day would never 

 come the building of the shipping crates began, 

 and then we knew that we were really going soon. 

 Our county was still without a railroad. Progress 

 from the south was slow, and delays and disappoint- 

 ments interminable supervened to impede the com- 

 pletion of the line in which the paternal fortune 

 had been invested. So when this Cedar Rapids 

 expedition was arranged it called for a thirty-mile 

 haul to the town of Washington on the Rock 

 Island's Kansas City line. Old Dieppe, the imported 

 "Norman," was to go. Also two or three alleged 

 trotters that had a trainer and sulkies and harnesses 

 and boots and blankets and bandages galore, and 

 could go just fast enough to lose every race in 

 which they were ever started. We all knew that 

 this outfit was unprofitable; but father loved a good 



