TROTTING TRACKS. 



(Published in "The Spirit of the Times," December 24, 1887.) 



"Now, boys, don't think you can go out into the com- 

 mons, with a piece of rope and a halter-strap, and lay out 

 a track, for you can't/' was the remark of "Uncle Pe- 

 ter," an eccentric, good natured old gentleman of Yankee 

 extraction, and country surveyor of "ye olden time" pro- 

 fession, who loved a horse much better than his service- 

 able surveyor's chain, to some dozen of us village lads 

 years agone, and shortly after the little bob-tailed Flora 

 Temple clipped the wings of the phantom scythe-bearer, 

 electrifying the world by the achievement, and making the 

 then obscure town of Kalamazoo famous. No portion 

 of the world was more enthused over the feat than that 

 bounded by the corporation limits of Ashland, O., for 

 Ashland was a "horsey" town, and almost every boy 

 there thought he had a trotter that could give even Flora 

 Temple a race (mine was "Nellie," a bob-tailed roan 

 mare of uncertain age and wheezy propensities), if we 

 only had a track to practice upon. Besides, wasn't Ash- 

 land County the home of Post Boy, Camden, Telamon, 

 Bacchus, Blackbird, Grey Eagle and Stump Puller and 

 didn't "Uncle Peter" own a black mare by Camden, "the 

 very picter of Flora Temple, only she war black," as 

 "Uncle Peter" asserted, and he ought to know, for hadn't 

 he seen "Flora trot at Cleveland?" 



