RECOLLECTIONS OF MEN AND HORSES 



" Good gracious, why do you make such a sugges- 

 tion! You give me the cold shivers. If the birth 

 should be premature, good-by to all of my fond 

 hopes." 



The host looked so serious that other guests ridi- 

 culed the idea that anything at this late hour could 

 go wrong. At eleven o'clock, when the " Good old 

 mountain dew " chorus was filling the room and the 

 echoes were rising through the frosty air to greet 

 the stars, the foreman, lantern In hand, stood in the 

 big hall, and replied to the hurried question of the 

 host, if anything had gone wrong, that the noise of 

 toy cannons In the village had so greatly upset Flora 

 as to bring on labor pains. The newborn at that 

 very moment was lying on a bed of straw in the big 

 box stall. The cloud of disappointment on the 

 face of the host was so unmistakable that one of the 

 merrymakers remarked: "Why keep count of an 

 hour? If your foreman had not come to us with his 

 tale of woe, we should not have discovered the foal 

 until morning, and then the record would have been 

 born January ist." 



" Such false records may be made, under strong 

 temptation on some farms, but never on this. Deep 

 as my disappointment is, the colt, when the clock 

 strikes twelve, will be, under the racing rule, a year- 

 ling instead of a suckling. I played to reduce the 

 handicap and have made the weight crushing. Well, 

 it is a chance I took, and I must abide by the result. 

 Gentlemen, once more the chorus! " 



2 



