All day they tended the stallion, and the next night Stanley again insisted upon watching throughout the night. This time Early Ann brought coffee and sandwiches before the rest of the family went to bed. Stanley said nothing but pulled the girl roughly to him.
"No, no," she whispered. "Don't, Mr. Brailsford, please. I ain't strong enough to fight you, Stanley, please."
She began to cry, so he let her go, unharmed. She did not leave immediately, but waited to pour him another cup of coffee.
She wondered if he were asking too much, if other girls were so virtuous. She wondered if she should be kind to this unhappy man. But before she could answer these questions they saw the first flames and caught the smell of burning hay.
3
Looking back upon that night of wind and gusty rain when the Brailsford barn burned like a pile of dry shavings in a forest fire, Sarah sometimes wondered what blind impulse had sent her through the smoke and flames to save the twin Percheron colts. She thought that perhaps it was her feeling of protection for young things. She couldn't bear to think of the colts being burned.
"Save yourself, Mother," Brailsford had cried above the roaring fire, struggling vainly to save the stallion; pleading, whipping and cajoling. At last he left the inert sire, rushed to the box stall of Napoleon and led the bull to safety.
"Help Gus with the cows down at the other end," Stud shouted to his wife. "I'll get the horses."
He went in among the fire-crazed mares and geldings, old work horses who were faithful and quiet in the field but who were now leaping, terrified, wild animals, straining at their halter ropes, pawing the floor, and shying like unbroken yearlings at the thunder of the flames. Early Ann led the three ponies into the tobacco shed, then ran like the wind to the telephone in the kitchen.
"Hurry, it's the Brailsford barn," she cried. "Take the short cut over Barton's hill."