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Show AN IMPROMPTU HORSE RACE. How a "Klnger" Got left in a Mile Straightaway. One of our boys was over in the Mohawk Mo-hawk Valley one day, and on that same day a couple of chaps came into a village on a tin peddler's wagon. They were driving a horse which could have fooled no one but a hayseed. Any one posted on the points of a trotter would have put him down as good for less than three minutes. This was in the olden days, when a horse showing a clip of 3:50 was Ipoked upon as a marvel. The peddlers found the usual crowd at the village tavern, and it didn't take them two hours to get up a match with the boss trotter of the neighborhood. It was best two in three for $50, and tho tin wagon horse won both heats in 2:55. It was evidently a put up job to skin the rustics, and as they were headed our way we determined to be ready for them. We sent 100 miles after a trotter, trot-ter, scraped our dollars together, and the day the peddlers arrived we had our nag drawing manure with a cart. The peddlers ped-dlers arrived at about 11 o'clock, and after dinner, as we all sat on the veranda, one of them carelessly inquired: "Got anything in hoss flesh to brag of here?" "One purty fair hoss," replied the village vil-lage cooper, who had a dreadfully innocent inno-cent look on his fatherly face. "Can he go?" "Wall, he's cleamed 'em so fur." "Our old hoss does a mile fairly well." "Yes?" "And, just for the fun of the thing, we sometimes trot him." "Yes?" "Can't we get up a go?" "Wall, our hoss is no cheap animal. We'd want to make it a hundred at least." "We'd rather make it $250." In ten minutes we had the money up and the race agreed to. We had no track, but the highway was broad and smooth, and it was to bo a mile straightaway. straight-away. The peddlers brought in a sulky they had left just out of town, our horse was provided with another, and every man, woman and child in that town turned out. The raco was square up and up, and our horse got the first heat by three good lengths. We saw that the peddlers were puzzled and anxious, but they had sand, and each put up his watch for $30 more. It was a fair, even start on the second heat, and the pace was even for a quarter of a mile. Then our horse began drawing away, and when he went under the string he was thirty feet ahead. The peddlers gave up the stakes, sat down by themselves and had a talk, and then the spokesman finally moved over to where the cooper stood and said: "We see through it - and we can't squeal. As for your getting an old 'ringer' to match ours we haven't any fault to find, but what harrows up our souls and makes us long for rest beyond the grave is the idea that we were taken in and done for by such a benign old CU6S as you seemed to be, but ain't! I'll tie both feet and one hand and fight you for the hoss and wagon!" New York Sun, |
