FINDING HIS IDKAI,. 389 



one to the end of the wagon until I found a purchaser. 

 But that is not here or there, as it is not a part of this 

 story. 



In due time I reached Toledo, and, as the roads 

 further west were deep, I decided to turn back from 

 that point and make for New England. I then had a 

 gray and a black, both good horses for the road, but 

 only ordinary every day horses. There was not 

 much wrong with either of them and what it was, it 

 would take a better man than me to find out. Now, 

 while I do not wish to interrupt this tale, I wish to 

 say on the side, as the actors do on the stage, that 

 every horse trader, at least all that I have met and 

 known, has away down in his heart the idea of a 

 horse he would like to own and retire satisfied that 

 he had the best to be found. With some it is a chest- 

 nut with four white feet and a flaxen mane and tail, 

 and with others a gray with almost sense enough to 

 talk. I also had up to that time an idea of the horse 

 I wanted, but to save my life I could not describe him. 

 It was, however, something that I had never seen, 

 or, at least, examined close enough to feel that I 

 wanted to own it. Like many another man, I found 

 my horse in Toledo. He crossed my path on a Sun- 

 day morning as I was sitting in front of the stable 

 where I had put up, and just after I had cleaned up 

 everything so as to^be ready to start east the follow- 

 ing morning before the sun was high enough to take 

 the starch out of a collar, as it is powerful warm in 

 Northern Ohio about the first of September- On 

 looking down the street, I saw a boy coming towards 

 me leading a bay gelding with a diamond-shaped 

 spot on his forehead. There was nothing remarkable 



