CHAPTER XX 



PARTING WITH POLLY 



HAVE sold Polly, Polly, my only and 

 favorite saddle- mare ; Polly, my quick- 

 stepping, nervy, nervous-driving mare ; 

 Polly, who would take the bit between 

 her teeth and pull double the moment my leg 

 crossed the saddle, and yet would trot as gently 

 and quietly as an ambling palfrey with my small 

 daughter astride ; Polly, who would occasionally 

 come home with fence-posts or the foundations 

 of buildings hitched to her neck, and who on 

 one occasion dove bodily through the barn-door 

 when in one of her hasty returns she found the 

 portal closed ; Polly, who ran three miles with me 

 one day when I lost my temper and struck her 

 with the whip. I have sold her, and I feel like a 

 penurious old malefactor. 



It was Daniel who got me into the scrape. 

 Daniel has a theory, which he expounds to every 

 one, that a farmer ought to sell his products 

 when there is a market for them and when they 

 are ripe. "For instance," says Daniel, "it's a 

 mighty dangerous thing to hold staple, but per- 



