When night was coming on and it was getting dark out of doors, the open wood fire was lighted in the back parlor; and then in the glow which made everything in the room look so queer, with his hand in hers, Sid’s mother took him off to other lands and even to the Moon.
One night, not long ago, as Sid sat looking into the fire with his head against his mother’s knee, she said:
“Come, Sid, let’s go to Greece and take a ride on a Centaur.”
Nothing could have pleased Sid more. He hadn’t the slightest idea what a Centaur was, but he loved to ride, and it made very little difference to him what he rode on.
Besides he was tired to-night and didn’t feel like walking; so, with his eyes half shut, and feeling very, very comfortable, Sid waited for the Centaur to take him off.
“Well,” said his mother, in a voice that was always very sweet to him; “there’s a little country in Greece called Thessaly, and it’s full of caves, and beautiful valleys as well. In one of the caves lived a Centaur named Chiron. He had the body of a horse, but instead of a horse’s neck and head he had the head and shoulders and body of a man down to the waist. He was a very old and wise Centaur and although he lived in a cave he loved the open air on the high mountains.”
How much longer Sid’s mother talked I don’t know. Although she did not notice it, Sid was gone. He had been carried off by a Centaur. While he was looking into the fire and wondering what made the coals take such queer shapes he heard a strange noise outside. It wasn’t exactly the neighing of a horse and it was not exactly the voice of a man, but it was something between the two.
“That’s very funny,” said Sid to himself; “wonder what it is!”
In a moment or two he heard it again and it sounded a great deal nearer than before. Then there was a sharp canter down the road and the clatter of hoofs past the windows. Sid’s mother did not seem to pay any attention to the noise, but she had stopped talking—at least Sid thought she had, and he got up very quietly, stepped out into the hall and went to the side door. There wasn’t any moon but the stars were shining brightly and there, going round and round the circle of grass under the apple trees, Sid saw a splendid black horse. As it came round again to the place where he stood Sid saw that it was not a horse after all, for above its forelegs it had the head and body of a man.
It was a Centaur. Sid had never seen one before and he was sure nobody in that neighborhood owned one. Where it had come from he hadn’t the slightest idea, and if it hadn’t been for the apple trees and the great, dark church beyond he would have believed he was dreaming.