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THE AMERICA N-SCA N DIN A VIA N R E VIE TV 
supernatural about it, as if it knew all there was to be known. Many 
hundreds of years had passed over it. It had seen the dead when they 
were still alive, when they went to church like ourselves. The surround¬ 
ing graveyard was a little village of wooden crosses and stone slabs; 
and the grass grew wild between the leaning monuments. We knew 
well enough that the sexton mowed it and fed it to his cows; so that 
when we got a drink of milk at his house we felt as if we were quaffing 
the very souls of the departed, a kind of angelic milk from which we 
drew transcendental virtues with every draft. 
We boys used to stand outside the church and do as our elders did 
—size up the people that arrived after us. We judged by appearances, 
and they all knew it. The cripple made himself look smaller than ever 
so as to hide in the crowd; the dandies ran the gauntlet of both friendly 
and unfriendly eyes, and pretty women looked down and smiled. We 
youngsters searched the gathering throng for some one to admire, some 
heroic figure we should like to resemble when we ourselves one day 
should be grown up. There was the new teacher, for instance, stalking 
along in his homespun with his coat buttoned tight, with a white necktie, 
top hat, and umbrella. He was at least one stage above the farmer. 
Not a doubt about it, we too were going to attend the normal school. 
So we thought, at any rate, until a butcher came up from the city wear¬ 
ing a suit of blue duffle, a white waistcoat with a gold watch-chain, cuffs, 
a dazzling white collar, and a straw hat. He was a perfect revelation. 
With such an exemplar before us it was easy to decide that we were 
to become butcher’s apprentices as soon as we were old enough. 
Many were the magnates that paraded through our day dreams. 
Still it was with no ordinary emotion that we laid eyes for the first time 
on a city lawyer. His was a truly royal presence. Even his nose had 
its appropriate ornament, a pair of gold eye-glasses. Our ambitions 
soared beyond all bounds. Whatever our hopes of higher education 
might be, most of us were bent on carrying our studies far enough to 
impair our vision and so to justify the use of gold-rimmed glasses. 
Then came Skobelef. And Skobelef was a horse. 
For weeks busy little feet had been bringing the tidings to all cor¬ 
ners of the parish. Peter Lo had bought a registered stallion that was 
not simply a horse but a whole Arabian Night’s entertainment. It 
took six men to lead him ashore from the steamer. Only one man 
could have turned the trick alone, and that was Peter Lo himself. For 
the most part the horse walked on his hind legs. He kept whinnying 
even in his sleep. He was so fierce that he had already killed a number 
of men. His name was Skobelef. And what do you suppose they fed 
him? It was neither hay nor oats nor bran; not much! Skobelef’s 
fodder was nothing less than egg-nog, made with whiskey, at that. It 
was common talk that Peter Lo and the stallion munched this proven- 
