Part 2

But having once said that the colt was "no-count," the old General refused to notice it. "Po' little thing," said he, a month after it was able to pace around without help from its stays, "po' little thing! What a pity they didn't kill it."

But Uncle Jack and Little Sister, with the help of old Uncle Wash, nursed it, petted it and helped old Betty to raise it. And the next spring their reward came in a nervous, high-strung but delicate looking little slip that was indeed a beauty. The General would surely relent now! But those who thought so did not know the old man. He merely glanced at the weanling and remarked again: "The damned little weakling! That old Betty should ever have played off on me like that!" He turned indifferently away. Whereupon both the filly and the little girl turned up their noses behind his back.

The fall that the filly was three years old the big county fair came off, with pacing stakes for the best three-year-old. The purse was a thousand dollars, but greater still was the glory!

The old General had entered a big colt named Princewood for the stakes. This colt had been carefully trained for two seasons and had already cost his owner more than he was worth. "But it's the reputation I am after, suh," the General said to the driver, "the honor of the thing. Our farm has already taken it twice, you know."

Now Uncle Jack was something of a whip himself. He could not ride because of a lame knee, so he became an expert in driving. The old General had failed to notice how all the fall he had been giving Betty's filly special attention with a hot brush now and then. Wrapped up as he was in Princewood's wonderful speed, he had not noticed that Uncle Jack had frequently called for his light road wagon, and that he and Little Sister, now six years old, had taken delightful spins down the shady places in the cool byways, where the footing was good and there was no gravel or stones, and nobody could see them when they asked the high-strung little filly "to step some," as Little Sister expressed it.

Then at supper one night, when Colonel Goff had dropped in as he often did, the old General began to brag about Princewood's wonderful speed and of the way in which his favorite grandson, Braxton Bragg, could drive him.

"Why, Goff," said the General, "that boy is a wonder! He drove the colt to-day a mile with one hand in 2:25."

Uncle Jack winked at Little Sister, and she had to cram her mouth full of peach preserves to keep from laughing. The General saw and guessed there was a joke on him somewhere, and being one of those who loved to joke others, but did not love to be joked himself, he flushed red and began to praise Braxton Bragg openly, hoping it would go home to his other grandson who sat so quietly at the table winking at Little Sister and with something evidently up his sleeve....

"Yes, suh," said the General after a while, "Princewood will simply eat up the field, and Braxton Bragg--ay, there's a boy for you!--he'll be a great soldier some day--Braxton Bragg will simply drive the hoofs off the whole bunch."

Then Eloise looked up. Eloise was fifteen and lithe, with her red-gold hair just being put up, and so graceful and beautiful that Little Sister worshipped her, as did also Uncle Jack and Braxton Bragg, and Colonel Goff for that matter.

Eloise had caught the wink that Uncle Jack gave, and understood it in an instant. For Eloise knew things, especially about horses.

"And you really think Braxton Bragg and Princewood will eat up the field," she said ever so sweetly and respectfully to the old General. "My, I'd like ever so much to take the field end of that," she added indifferently, but winking at Uncle Jack.

"My dear," said the old General, "I don't gamble with sweet school girls; but if Princewood fails to make good, I'll just give you that fine Whiteman saddle you've been wanting all the time----"

"I can't play a one-sided bet like that; it isn't fair," said Eloise. "I'd like to be as generous as you are, sir, and put up a forfeit. But dear me," and she sighed like the exiled queen in the fairy tale, "I'm dowerless and own nothing."

"Good," said Colonel Goff. "Brave girl! now that lets _me_ in. General, just let me take the bet off your hands. Now then, Eloise, I'll take you dowerless--for you are a dower all unto yourself," he said, bowing grandly, "and I'll bet you--mark me now--I'll bet you that new English saddle mare I've just imported, against your own sweet self, that my friend the General's Princewood will win that race!"

"It's a go," cried Eloise, rising gracefully and taking his hand, "red-leather-bargain-done-for-ever," she added laughing.

The General looked pleased--he showed it in his bland smile and the vigorous nodding of his head. He whispered to Goff: "By gad, Goff, but all joking aside--she'll make you the finest wife alive!"

Eloise heard and looked over at Jack with a smile, but Jack's head was down on his breast and there was no smile on his lips.

Never remotely--in any way--in his dreams--(and being a poet, he dreamed often) had he thought of Eloise belonging to anyone but him!...

It looked as if all the county was there on the fine fall day of the race. It was one of those sweet old country fairs where the yeomanry of the hills and the lassies from the valleys make holiday, and the heifers with polished horns share the glory with the fillies, bedecked with ribbons, and stepping proudly in air to music.

The field was a large one; for the purse was rich and the honor even richer.

"And Princewood's a prime favorite, suh," chuckled the old General as he walked around, holding by the hand a little girl who went everywhere with him, and who wondered whether, after all, Uncle Jack really knew. And so hearing so much that was braggart of Princewood, she all but lost faith: as is the way of us all if we do not touch, now and then, the shrine of our Truth.

Eloise was there, now flirting with the country beaux, and now riding Colonel Goff's saddle mare in the rings for blue ribbons. By two o'clock she had the mare's head-stall full of them, and one big one adorned her own riding whip as "the best lady rider." Seeing her beauty and grace, Colonel Goff murmured to himself:

"By gad, but I'll make her Lady Carfax some day."

The bell had already rung twice for the race and all the owners and horses were supposed to be preparing to score down, when a new entry drove in. He sat in a spider-framed four-wheeled gentleman's road cart instead of in a sulky, which would make him at least four seconds slow in a race like that. And he wore a cutaway business suit and a soft felt hat, and not a gaudy jockey cap and silk coat as did Braxton Bragg, who drove Princewood and was bragging about what he was going to do.

The newcomer nodded familiarly to the starting judge and paced his nervous looking little filly up the stretch.

"Who is that coming into this race in that kind of a thing?" asked the old General of a farmer standing near, for his eyesight was failing him.

"Why, General, don't you know yo' own grandson? That's young Jack Ballington," said the man.

"The hell you say!" shouted the excited old man. "Why dammit, has Jack gone crazy? He always was a fool!" And he clattered over a bench with his wooden leg and hobbled up the stretch to head off the pair.

"By gad, suh, Jack," he shouted, "are you going to drive in this race?"

Jack nodded and smiled, while he soothed the nervous little filly with gentle words.

"And what's that little rakish looking thing you've got there?"

"That's Little Sister, Grandfather," he said, good-naturedly. "I'm really just driving her to please our little girl and see how she'll act in company."

The old General was amazed, indignant, outraged. "Why, you're the daddy of all damned fools that ever lived!" he blurted. "They'll lose you both in this race! Get off the track, Jack, for God's sake, and don't disgrace old Betty this way--why, that old mare--I've ridden her for fifteen years! Why, I rode her dam clear through the war. She helped chase Banks and Fremont out of the valley--why that little no-count thing--Jack, she'll drop dead if you extend her."

Jack smiled. "It's just for a little fun, Grandfather, and to please the little girl; for it's her pet, you know. I'll just trail them and if she's too soft I'll pull out the second heat. But she's better than you think," he added indifferently.

The old General expostulated, threatened; but Jack laughed good-naturedly and drove off. Then the old General repented. It was comically pathetic to hear him call out: "Jack, Jack, don't tell anybody it's old Betty's colt, will you? Promise me, boy. Why, I rode her for fifteen years. I rode her dam all through the valley of Virginia with Stonewall Jackson." But Uncle Jack drove on, chuckling to himself: "I'll bet ten to one he'll be telling it before I do."

When the little filly got into company she was positively gay. She forgot all about herself, and like great people the world over she lost her nervous ways when the great effort was on, and went away at the go of the starter with a rush that almost took Uncle Jack's breath from him.

He pulled her quickly down. "Ho--ho, Little Sister--if you do that again you'll give us all dead away, and that will spoil the fun." He glanced quickly around to see if anyone saw him. But the crowd were all busy watching Princewood. So Uncle Jack trailed behind, the very last of the bunch, but with the little filly fighting indignantly for her head all the way.

Nobody seemed to see them at all, that is, nobody but a little girl, who clung nervously to the old General's middle finger, and wondered, with her child's faith fiercely battered, if her Uncle Jack, her Uncle Jack who knew it all and could do anything, if he, the mighty, was really going to tumble from his lofty throne in her mind?

Then she got behind the General's big Prince Albert coat tail, and wiped away two nervous little tears. Princewood had paced in way ahead. She stuck her fingers in her ears, so that she could not hear the shouts, and her little nervous lips closed tight with indignant shame. When she took them out the shouting was over, but she heard the old General say, "Wasn't it a walkover? That fool grandson of mine has always made me tired. I don't believe the little thing can go round again."

This cut into the soul of the little girl. She pretended to go after a glass of the big red lemonade that they sold under a near-by tree; but really she went to cry in the dark hall under the grand stand and to wipe her tears on the frills of the pretty little petticoat Mother Thesis had made for her just to wear to the fair.

There was one who knew, however, because she really had horse sense. She was riding a beautiful English saddle mare across the infield, and she looked like a young Diana in her dark blue riding suit, and she sat her horse like the Centaur's wife. As she rode across the grassy infield, Braxton Bragg came up, and catching her mare by the bit, stopped her short. His little round, weak face was focused into a smile. Eloise flushed, vexed that he should seize a moving mare by the bit, for it is against all good horsemanship to do it; just as one pilot would resent another interfering with his wheel. She looked down on him without a smile.

"Say, Eloise," he said as one who seeks a compliment, "how do you like the way I did it?"

Long ago Eloise had said of Braxton Bragg: "Answer a fool according to his folly." Therefore she smiled dryly now and said, "Beautifully. How entirely and completely you do fill that sulky seat, Braggy." Braxton Bragg, not knowing what satire was, took this for a compliment, and smiled again. Then, encouraged, he whispered low to her: "You've never given me a chance to show you just how much I could do for love of you, Eloise."

"Oh," she answered, ever so sweetly.

"Yes," he sighed affectedly, trying to look love-lorn, cocking his head with affected sadness and succeeding only in looking ridiculous.

"Oh," she said sweetly again. If he had had sense he would have seen the sweetness was for ends of her own. "Oh, how sweet of you and how cruel of me, Braggy." Her tone was very clear. If he had only looked down the past he might have remembered that whenever she had called him Braggy she had been planning to do him.

He sighed again, which shut his mouth the second time. Eloise, demurely, but inwardly nearly bursting, did likewise. "Well?" he asked, expectantly.

"Yes," said Eloise encouragingly.

"I mean--can't--I now?"

"There's never a better time than the present, Braggy, you remember the school books say." Then she reached down and, pretending earnestness, said:

"You've got a walk-over, it's plain. It's yours for the asking, Braggy. And so--well--it's big odds I'm giving you, Braggy," and she laughed like a wood thrush, "but if you win that race I'll be yours alone henceforth and forever, Braggy."

He paled, taking her hand, which fell sidewise down past her saddletree, in his.

"Oh Eloise--dearest,"--he started bookishly, but ended in his own way, which was mentally unlearned: "Gee--but I'll win or bust!"

"And if you don't," began Eloise, ever so indifferently. "Of course you will," she smiled; "but if you don't, Braggy, now dear, why you'll just send me that set of seal-skins for that fashionable hennery I'm going to at Washington?"

"Good! Good!" he cried boisterously. "What odds you give me! You against a hundred dollar seal-skin! Oh, my, let me get busy!" And he rushed off, smirking back sillily at her.

"A saddle mare, a saddle, and a set of sealskins all in one day. Well, that's going some," Eloise chuckled as she rode up to the fence where Uncle Jack stood. Reaching down from her saddle, she tapped him on the shoulder.

He looked up into her laughing eyes, and flushed, for he had always loved her.

"Jack, Jack, you are a dandy! You did it beautifully! O, the stride of that rush before you called her down! Say, how do you like my mare? Isn't she a beauty?"

"If you say so," he said slowly, testing her, "I'll lay up the next heat; let _him_ win." He had remembered Goff's bet.

She flushed. Then she rapped him over the shoulder lightly with her whip.

"Why, Jack, that would be horrible! Do you think I'd have made the bet if I hadn't believed in you, loved you, brother mine?"

Jack flushed. "Do you, Eloise--do you--"

Eloise laughed. "Like a sister. Aunt Lucretia says we've got to marry each other, so what's the use of my kicking? But listen--now--say, Jack--you've played right into my hand. I'll need that Whiteman saddle for this beautiful thing. So hold up a while till I ride over and close that bet with the General. Now is my time! He's crazy about that great lobster of his and I could win The Home Stretch on this bet if I had anything to put up."

She wheeled her horse, threw a kiss down at Jack, and galloped off to find the General.

When Little Sister got back from her cry the General was gone. He was over at the table talking to Uncle Jack.

"Now, Jack," said he, "don't disgrace old Betty any more. Why, I rode her fifteen years. I rode her--"

Uncle Jack had always been so quiet that it was a distinct surprise to the old General when he showed an unsuspected grit and gameness.

"Hang her old dam, Grandfather, and your cursed old war in Virginia! Drop dead, will she? Well, sir, you are likely to see something drop yourself before this heat is over." And he turned on his heels and walked off.

The old General looked at him astounded, and with positive admiration.

"By gad," he said to himself, "he's either crazy or got more sense than us all. By gad, to think of him getting mad and having grit like that! He may make a soldier yet," and he chuckled with pride.

Now Uncle Jack meant business. He changed his cart for a sulky. Again they got the word. Princewood, having the pole and all advantage, flashed ahead in his big lumbering pace, Little Sister in the very rear, struggling for her head. Slowly, gradually, Uncle Jack let her have it. Steadily, like moving machinery set in grooves of steel, she came up on them, relentlessly, mercilessly cutting them down, one after another. At the half there was nothing but Princewood ahead and no one even saw her yet, for the shout was: "Princewood! Princewood!" This heat would make the race his.

"Princewood's got 'em, General!" yelled a countryman, his mouth so wide open from excitement that tobacco juice ran down his chin whiskers and into his shirt collar. "Princewood's got 'em! There's nothin' that kin head 'im!"

"He's got 'em!" yelled the partisans of the old General, packed solidly around him and cackling with half crazy joy. "Now jes watch sum'thin' drop."

But a girl sitting on her horse and looking over the crowd saw it differently. A daring, knowing, triumphant smile lingered around her mouth. And not in heaven, nor in the star-lighted lake below, ever shone two stars rippling into little wavelets of glint and glory like those in the eyes of her.

The General, seeing her, shouted: "Yes, watch it drop! No saddle for you, young lady!"

Down went her keen, fun-loving eyes to those of the old soldier. "It's dropped already, General--see! I own that saddle now!"

Something had happened. The little filly felt the reins relax and a kindly chirrup come from her driver. In a twinkling, in the whir of a spinning wheel, she was up with the big fellow, half frightened at her own speed, half doubting that it was really she who did it, half sobbing with the keen thrill of it, like a great singer who for the first time hears her own voice filling a great hall.

"_Princewood! Princewood!_" shouted the crowd around their idol, the General, "_Princewood's broke the record!_"

The old General rose in happy anticipation: "Yes, boys, it looks like the record is busted by--"

Here his jaw dropped as if paralyzed; for his trained eye took in the situation and the word died in his mouth. What was that little bay thing that had so gamely collared his big horse? Who is that quiet-looking fellow in the soft hat handling the reins like a veteran and leading the march like Stonewall's Foot-Cavalry in the Valley? His grandson, Jack, was in a cart; this man sat in a sulky. And Jack was driving a little limp-waisted, hollow-flanked--

"Who the devil--" he began, when someone clinging to his middle finger looked up, great smiles chasing tears down her cheeks and so excited she could scarcely breathe.

"Why, it's Little Sister, Grandpa! Now isn't she just too sweet for anything?"

The next instant the little filly laughed in the big pacer's face, who had quit in a tangled break, as much as to say: "_You big braggart duffer, have you quit already?_" and then, like a homing pigeon loosed for the first time, she sailed away from the field.

"Princewood--Princewood has broke the record--" shouted the farmer who hadn't caught on and was shouting for Princewood, but was looking at the champion pumpkin in the window of the Agricultural Hall.

And then the old General lost his head and what little religion he had left. For he jumped on a bench, his wooden leg rattling as he danced up and down, like a flock of goats in a barn loft, and this is what the town crier in the courthouse window, a mile away, heard him yelling:

"_Damn Princewood! Damn the record! It's Little Sister--Little Sister--my own mare--old Betty's filly. I rode her fifteen years! I rode her dam--_"

"Oh--" sang out mockingly a beautiful girl, sitting her horse beside him, with a laugh that sounded like a wood thrush's. "But I've won a saddle and a seal-skin cloak and the sweetest mare in the world! Say, Braggy," for Braxton Bragg just then drove in, the last of the whole procession--"that engagement is all off, isn't it?"

Then Uncle Jack, who had stopped and got out of the sulky, came up, his face aglow. And she, her eyes still fired to starry beauty, leaned from the saddle and kissed him.

"You darling Jack, how can I ever get even for this?"

"I said he'd be telling about it first," said Uncle Jack, wagging his head at the crowd, where the old General stood telling them that it was _he_ who had bred the great little filly and that it was _his old mare_ who was the dam of her!

"And the little old no-count thing did play off on you sure enough, didn't she, Grandpa?" came from the tear-eyed tot beside him, so naively in earnest and telling such a plain unvarnished truth that even the old General's partisans had to wink and nudge each other as they walked off. The old General laughed as he picked her up and said: "And here's the little girl that saved her, gentlemen, the smartest girl in Tennessee; and she's got more horse sense than her old granddaddy!"

There was one more heat, of course; but it was only a procession, and those behind--and that meant the field--cannot swear to this day which way Little Sister went....

*II*

*"A TWILIGHT PIECE"*

... "And all that I was born to be and do, a twilight piece." --_Robert Browning_.

*CHAPTER I*

*THE FLAME IN THE WOOD*

Home again and Tennessee in April! When the train swept over the Highland Rim, the woods, not yet in full leaf, seemed afire with the clustering blooms of the pink azaleas. On both sides, in little sudden and short valleys, and farther off on dwarf-oak hillsides, they blazed. Far beyond their faint, mist-like flush mingled with the sky line in the distant openings, and seemed an arc of soft sunset clouds.

Cream-white dogwoods rose up in open spaces against the blurred, pink backgrounds, clustering like evening stars in rose cloud-banks. Anon they grew in separate groups, down in little dells, and each of these tiny bowls was full of them.

Their odor, soft and fragrant, swept through the train, dew-damp and like old memories in sweetness.

This seems to me to be the main thought about all wild flowers, that they alone are God's idea of beauty and not those that bloom in gardens and hot houses through the skill of man. If, from any cause, such as the gas from a comet's tail, men should vanish in a night, none of these last would live to bloom again. Like their makers they would pass from the earth. But like Nature's Maker the wild sweet things of the wood and meadows and mountains would bloom again, although man were not, mirroring God's idea of beauty even to the desert.

If it is Nature's great desire that that which is best shall live, the wild flowers have Nature's underwriting of approval. Ancient Linnaeus said of one unfolding: "I saw God in his glory passing near me and bowed my head in worship."

Through all the ages those who see, whether poet or planter, think the same great thoughts. Tennyson said of the flower plucked from the crannied wall, that if he could know what it was he should know what God and man were. They bring a larger thought even than that, for they prove that God _is Beauty_.

Even as I was thinking this the train rushed through what had once been a wood, but was now a burnt and scarred spot, bare of life. The azaleas in their beauty, were the flame in the woods which Nature had kindled: but this desolate spot was the flame which had come from the hand of man...

When the train stopped for water at the little station I got out and gathered a great bunch of flowers for Eloise....

Then as we dropped down into the Middle Basin, filled with the blue grass in its spring glory, whole acres of hepaticas twinkled up at us like fallen fireflies.