There was a whinny outside, in a small paddock, where a nearby stable stood: “That's Cap'n Tom's horse,” said the old man—“I mus' go see if he's hungry.”
“I've kept his horse these ten years, hopin' maybe he'd come back agin. It's John Paul Jones—the thoroughbred, that the old General give him.”
“I remember him,” said Jack.
The great bloodlike horse came up and rubbed his nose on the old man's shoulder.
“Hungry, John Paul?”
“It's been a job to get feed fur him, po' as I've been—but—but—he's Cap'n Tom's. You kno'—”
“An' Cap'n Tom will ride him yet,” said Jack.
“Do you believe it, Jack?” asked the old man huskily “God be praised!”
That Saturday night was one never to be forgotten by others beside Jack Bracken and the old preacher of Cottontown.
When Helen Conway, after supper, sought her drunken father and learned that he really intended to have Lily and herself go into the cotton mills, she was crushed for the first time in her life.