I wonder if Ditsy is in the stands, but I do not wonder long as somebody asks him if his sister is in the stands and he says, "No, she is home." And somebody says, "Don't she like horse races?" And he says, "No." And somebody says, "Well, that is odd. Your own sister." And he says, "How would you like to go bag your ears," which shows that he is keyed up to a considerable degree.
He is up in the first, again in the third, and again in the fourth. I am not up at all until the next day. In fact, I am only there because I cannot stay away, so I goes out and hangs over the veranda rail to watch the first.
It is a swell day. One of them high, blue ones. There is music coming out of the announcing system and people is walking around and everything is kind of stirred up like—like it is before the start. It is a fast track and pretty to look at and Happy Slauderwasser comes out and says, "Move over," and we both hangs over the veranda rail and just look at how everything looks, if you know what I mean.
Then the horses is mincing past, Jimmie about as big as a good-sized pea, and then the barrier is in, and it is Beeknight in No. 6, and everything gets quiet with a little murmur running through it like a breeze with a lid on it, and you can hear the popcorn peddlers real plain, and then there is that swelling cry, "THEY'RE OFF!" But it chokes in the middle and there is a surge for the fence and the stands rise up and cranes their necks and Happy says, "My God!" and I near falls over the veranda rail because Beeknight is pawing the air and kicking and acting in general like he is a prize exhibition at a rodeo and for all them shenanigans he does not go nowheres. It is like he is trying to kick his way through a wall or something. Jimmie is stuck closer than a plaster, but not for long. Beeknight gives a lunge and Jimmie goes over, and a sort of a soft, gusty sound goes up from the crowd like a thousand breaths has been let out at once.
By the time Jimmie has hit the ground, they is taking Beeknight out and do you know that confounded horse is as calm as a June morning? Jimmie gets out under his own power.
Yeah. You see it coming, kick loose and roll with the fall and it does not no more than scrape off the top fuzz.
It seems like a hour at least has gone past, but it cannot be no more than a handful of seconds because it is all clear when the field moves into the stretch.