JUST AS IT WAS.
“We were now passin’ the half-way spring and the race was fully as undecided as when we broke away from the hootin’ crowd on the picnic grounds.
“Down past old Deacon Shovelridge’s ten-acre hop yard we went rack-a-te-bang! hub end against hub end, and the outer wheels a-spokin’ it within six inches of a four-foot ditch.
“The ride to the Corners began to look like the ride to etarnity, and Tilley was as pale as a gray nun’s ghost, and continewally making narvous reaches for the lines.
“But Kate was equal to the surroundin’s. Thar she sot, with one arm around me and ’tother graspin’ the seat rail, and above the clatter of hoofs and steel axles, I could hear her repeatin’:—
“‘Stick to him, Jim, and start my stitches, if he doesn’t git his crop full of dust yet!’
“Old Shovelridge was in the field on a load of hay as we were passin’. He was inclined to piety, and if the world had no hosses in it I reckon he’d have been as pious as a church organ.
“And when he saw us a-raspin’ down the turnpike as though we were ridin’ in a four-hoss chariot, and saw Kate Rykert’s great swad of blonde har a-streamin’ out behind, like the tail of a comet, he couldn’t contain his feelin’s no how.
“He gin a rousin’ whoop like a Chilchat Indian, when he sights a fur hunter. Throwin’ away the pitchfork—which accidentl’y harpooned the old lady in the back who was rakin’ behind—and jumpin’ from the load, he took across the field to’ards the turnpike, swingin’ his old straw hat and hollerin’:—
“‘Go it, Dudley; go it! Keep the hoss up with the rat-tail mare, and I’ll bet my farm you’ll make Grab Corner fust!’