“At this the White-haired Master fairly roared with laughter. ‘Pay him another hundred, Gossett—pay him another hundred! He has earned it. You’ll not find another man in the county to pay you such a compliment.’
“There must have been some joke or hit in this, for the people laughed even louder than the White-haired Master, and Mr. Gossett turned very red in the face. But if it was a joke it passed over my head. I saw no fun in it, and neither did the Son of Ben Ali, who had drawn near and was fondling the thin white hand of the Little Master in his.”
Here the Gray Pony paused and held his head up as if he heard a noise somewhere. Then he cropped off a bunch of peach leaves and chewed on them, to all appearances relishing their flavor. This done, he scratched his neck by rubbing it against the peach-tree, which was old and rough. The children sat absorbed in the story he was telling.
“Now, right here,” the Gray Pony went on, “two or three things happened so close together that the quickest eye could hardly separate them. If I told them as they happened I should have to tell them all at once, but this can’t be done, not even in your tongue. So I’ll have to blunder along the best I know how. In cantering or galloping I always start off on my right forefoot. A man taught me that with a whip, and I’ve never been able to forget it. That foot comes down heaviest, and I always fling the right foreshoe first. It was loose when we started from home that morning, and when I jumped at Mr. Gossett I wrenched it nearly off. For a time I didn’t mind it, but every time I stamped my foot to drive the flies away it rang and rattled like a cow bell. The Son of Ben Ali, hearing it rattle as he stood by the Little Master, stooped and placed his hand on my knee. I gave him my foot, and he drew the shoe off by giving it a slight twist with his fingers.
“When the White-haired Master told Mr. Gossett to pay the trader another hundred dollars he made a step toward the man to see what he would do. At that moment Mr. Gossett’s son George, a great rowdy and bully, came rushing through the crowd. He was red in the face and fairly foaming at the mouth. He came crying, ‘Is pap in a fuss? Where are you, pap?’ He had a pistol in his hand, and when he saw the White-haired Master standing so near his pap, as he called him, he bellowed like a mad bull, and came rushing up, leveling the pistol as he got near.
“This happened just as the Son of Ben Ali wrenched the shoe from my foot. Still stooping he turned his head and saw George Gossett halt and point his pistol at the White-haired Master. I felt the body of the Son of Ben Ali sway under my neck in the most unaccountable manner, and the next moment I saw young Gossett fall as if he had been struck by lightning. The Son of Ben Ali crept under my belly, and when I saw him again he was sitting on the block where he had stood to be sold, his arms folded, and his eyes closed as if he were fast asleep.
“No one knew what had happened except the Son of Ben Ali and myself. All eyes had been fixed on George Gossett and the White-haired Master. Some said Gossett had fallen in a fit of passion and that the blood had burst from his face. Some said that he had fallen on a horseshoe that happened to be lying near. Some said one thing and some another. George Gossett always declared, so I’ve heard, that somebody jabbed him in the face with a forked stick, but his best friends said he was drunk at the time and fell on the horseshoe and hurt himself. But there were some people who whispered it around that they saw the blood gush from his face as he fell forward.
“The matter was never explained, and for many a long day no one but the Son of Ben Ali and I knew that Gossett had been hit in the face by one of my shoes. I think the White-haired Master learned the truth by asking the Son of Ben Ali about it one night, when they were returning from a long ride together.
“In the midst of the excitement, old Mr. Gossett forgot all about the Son of Ben Ali. But after the wounded man had been carried to a doctor’s shop and physicked, and the doctors had said that he would recover, though the bruise was a serious one, Mr. Gossett remembered his purchase, and came out to the public square in some alarm, fearing that his newly-bought slave had given him the slip. But he had not far to seek. Though the public square was deserted, except for the horses and mules tied to the racks and a few people straggling aimlessly about, the Son of Ben Ali still sat on the sheriff’s block, erect and silent, his arms folded and his feet crossed. The trader’s wagons and his train of slaves had passed on through the town.
“When Mr. Gossett saw the Son of Ben Ali sitting where he had left him, he nodded his head approvingly. His son had come to town in a wagon, and in this the young man had to be carried home. Straw was spread in the body of the wagon, and into this George Gossett was lifted. The old man had come in a buggy and he made the Son of Ben Ali sit beside him and drive him.”