“I hate to leave home,” he said, as we went along; “but she couldn’t stand it. She’s not well. It isn’t so bad for me with you along.”
Two or three times he was about to say something else, but felt too tired. I had him duly entered; introduced him to his surgeon; helped him to his cot, where a cheery nurse made him easy; then gave him my hand.
“Good-day,” he said; “I’m going to pay you back some time. Only I can’t.” He clung a moment longer to me. “I’ve never had many of the luxuries. I’ve worked hard for all I’ve got—except for the little colt. She was thrown in. I never fed her a quart of grain—the cleanest little eater—as fat as butter—and on nothing but roughage all the time!”
Then, looking me straight in the eye, he said calmly, “You and I know and the doctors know. But I couldn’t tell her. You tell her. You can. And tell her I guess she had better sell the little colt.”
He paused a moment. Something yet he wished to say—the thing he had tried before to say. I hope the Recording Angel took it down, and the way he said it, down. Not quite daring to look into my eyes, he asked, wistfully, “You don’t need a fast horse yourself, of course, having your auto?”
“Yes, I do, Joel,” I answered firmly; “I do need a fast horse. We all do, or something like that.” And I bent over and kissed him, for his wife, and for my little boy at home.
There is balm in Gilead; but are there racetracks in Heaven?—and fast horses there? Perhaps not. But I often wish that I had told Joel I believed there were. Of course there are. There is romance in Heaven, and the magical chance of escape there.