The last advice was unneeded. Up to then we had never kissed, but had fought continually. Knowing Aunt Lucretia, and that if we did not do as she said, something uncomfortable would happen to us, we screwed up our mouths, each trying to outdo the other in mock martyrdom, and complied.
After that Aunt Lucretia was very gracious. I think we showed remarkable horse-sense, young as we were, in carrying out her wishes, inasmuch as we expected some day to own the great farm and house.
To comfort me she used to say—for she knew my love of blooded stock: "She is beautiful, Jack, well built and coupled just right in the back. One link more of vertebræ would have spoiled her, turned her up too sloping between the shoulders, and made her gangling in the hips. If there's too many links in a filly's back, when the pinch of contest comes, you know, Jack, as well as I do, there will be a crumpling—and it is generally in their legs. And Eloise's, Jack—well, you should see it—thoroughbred—taut as a bow string—holding hip and head together. And not too short, either, Jack; the little dicky, short-backed ones, with schooner hips, are a sure sign of several vertebræ being lost by sitting on them for too many generations at the loom or the wheel, or carrying home the week's washing on their heads! It's the scrub sign, my boy. And Eloise is clean-limbed with good flat bones. Jack, as you love me and your God, never marry a woman that can't span her ankle with her thumb and forefinger—that kind of a fetlock is a scrub of the most pronounced type! It came from ancestors before them for a thousand years, who had all their weight on their ankles—just hauling plows like beasts of burden. And Eloise has great style with a fine sweep and action. Look how boldly she steps and clean and true! No loblolling, lazy ambling there—hitting even on the ground—and her hair, Jack—red-chestnut—it is beautiful and not too much. Shun the brood-mare with mane thick and heavy. It is pretty but comes from the scrub Shetlands or Andalusian jennets. Look—look, Jack—isn't she beautiful?"
I watched her myself, tall, her scornful, daring head thrown back, her fine braids of sorrel, silken hair flying out, as in a long-limbed, leaping sweep, she chased the collie across the yard.
The comparison was fitting—as a thoroughbred, Eloise was superb. My Aunt had copied it all by herself, tabulating for me, most elaborately and artistically, on a great sheet of parchment, Eloise's pedigree. It was such a tabulation as I had seen her work over night after night, often for months, handing down volume after volume of the English and Bruce's Stud Book and the Trotting and Pacing Register. In bold, block, decorated letters, she gradually evolved Eloise's sire and dam, as she grimly called them, and thence on to granddams and g. g. dams (every g. as I learned standing for another generation) until it looked, when finished, like a great river, with a hundred branching streams flowing in, and an endless row of g. g. g. g. g.'s
Under each sire and dam, and in red ink, in contrast to the black of their names, she had written their records, short and pointed, and often with astonishing frankness. I remember that under her grandsire—a Governor of Virginia—the red ink ran: Died of a wetting, while drunk at a horse race! Watch your children for too much crude liquor!
Under one of her dams, daughter of a Carolina judge, she had: She had a streak of common, for she ate onions. If you have daughters, don't plant the things in your garden!
Another of her great Virginia ancestors was a preacher, noted for his zeal in proselyting; under him was: Too religious—the reaction may come in your grandson, who is likely to be an infidel, Nature maintaining her balance in morals as in matter.
Now that I had come home from Germany it was evidently my Aunt's intention that Eloise and I should marry.
"Come, Eloise," said she, after our guests had left, and my grandfather had retired, "we will light Jack to bed in the old way."