“No,” said I “but I have often heard of him.”
“I’m the boy,” continued he; “perhaps a leetle—jist a leetle of the best man, at a horse swap, that ever trod shoe-leather.”
I began to feel my situation a little awkward, when I was relieved by a man somewhat advanced in years, who stepped up and began to survey the “Yallow Blossom’s” horse with much apparent interest. This drew the rider’s attention, and he turned the conversation from me to the stranger.
“Well, my old ’coon,” said he, “do you want to swap hosses?”
“Why, I don’t know,” replied the stranger; “I believe I’ve got a beast I’d trade with you for that one, if you like him.”
“Well, fetch up your nag, my old cock; you’re jist the lark I wanted to get hold of. I am perhaps a leetle, jist a leetle, of the best man at a horse swap, that ever stole cracklins out of his mammy’s fat-gourd. Where’s your hoss?”
“I’ll bring him presently; but I want to examine your horse a little.”
“Oh! look at him,” said the Blossom, alighting and hitting him a cut, “look at him. He’s the best piece of hoss flesh in the thirteen united universal worlds. There’s no sort o’ mistake in little Bullet. He can pick up miles on his feet and fling ’em behind him as fast as the next man’s hoss, I don’t care where he comes from. And he can keep at it as long as the sun can shine without resting.”
During this harangue, little Bullet looked as if he understood it all, believed it, and was ready at any moment to verify it. He was a horse of goodly countenance, rather expressive of vigilance than fire; though an unnatural appearance of fierceness was thrown into it, by the loss of his ears, which had been cropped pretty close to his head. Nature had done but little for Bullet’s head and neck; but he managed, in a great measure, to hide their defects, by bowing perpetually. He had obviously suffered severely for corn; but if his ribs and hip bones had not disclosed the fact, he never would have done it; for he was, in all respects, as cheerful and happy as if he commanded all the corn-cribs and fodder-stacks in Georgia. His height was about twelve hands; but as his shape partook somewhat of that of the giraffe, his haunches stood much lower. They were short, strait, peaked and concave. Bullet’s tail, however, made amends for all his defects. All that the artist could do to beautify it, had been done; and all that horse could do to compliment the artist, Bullet did. His tail was nicked in superior style, and exhibited the line of beauty in so many directions, that it could not fail to hit the most fastidious taste in some of them. From the root it dropped into a graceful festoon; then rose in a handsome curve; then resumed its first direction; and then mounted suddenly upwards like a cypress knee, to a perpendicular of about two and a half inches. The whole had a careless and bewitching inclination to the right.
Bullet obviously knew where his beauty lay, and took all occasions to display it to the best advantage. If a stick cracked, or if any one moved suddenly about him, or coughed, or hawked, or spoke a little louder than common, up went Bullet’s tail like lightning; and if the going up did not please, the coming down must of necessity, for it was as different from the other movement, as was its direction. The first, was a bold and rapid flight upward; usually to an angle of forty-five degrees. In this position he kept his interesting appendage, until he satisfied himself that nothing in particular was to be done; when he commenced dropping it by half inches, in second beats—then in tripple time—then faster and shorter, and faster and shorter still; until it finally died away imperceptibly into its natural position. If I might compare sights to sounds, I should say its settling was more like the note of a locust than anything else in nature.