“Princewood’s got ’em, Colonel!” exclaimed a countryman to the old man. “They’s nothin’ that kin head ’im!” and “Princewood wins! Princewood wins!” as they headed into the stretch.
And then something dropped. Little Sister felt the reins relax, and a kindly chirrup came from Uncle John. In a twinkling she was up with the big fellow, half frightened at her own speed, half doubting, like a prima donna when her sweet voice first fills a great hall, that it was really she who had done it.
“Princewood! Princewood!” shouted the crowd around their idol, the Colonel. “Princewood will break the record!” from partisans who knew more about plow horses than race horses.
The old Colonel arose in happy anticipation—and then, as his trained eye really took in the situation, his jaw dropped. What was that little bay streak that had collared so gamely his big horse? Who was the quiet-looking gentleman in the soft felt hat, handling the reins like a veteran driver? His son John was in a cart—this driver was in a sulky. “Who the devil—” he started to say, when somebody clinging to his finger cried out: “Look! Look! Grandpa! It’s Little Sister. Ain’t she just too sweet for anything?”
And the next instant the little filly laughed in the big pacer’s face, as much as to say, “You big duffer, have you quit already?” And then, like a homing pigeon loosed for the first time, she sailed away from the field.
“Princewood! Princewood will break the record!” shouted a man who hadn’t caught on and was yelling for Princewood while looking at the champion pumpkin in the window of the agricultural hall.
And then the old Colonel lost his head and, I am sorry to say, the most of his religion, for he jumped up on a bench and shouted so loud the town crier heard him in the court-house window, a mile away: “Damn Princewood! Damn the record! It’s Little Sister! Little Sister! Old Betty’s filly—my old mare’s colt!”
And then Uncle John laughed till he nearly fell out of the sulky. “I said he’d be telling all about her first,” he said, while a little innocent-looking tot plucked the old man by the coat-tail long enough to get him to stop telling the crowd all about the marvelous breeding of the wonderful filly, as she naively remarked: “And the little thing did play off on you sure enough, didn’t she, Grandpa?”
The crowd laughed, and Grandma picked her up, kissed her, and shouted: “And here’s the girl that saved her, gentlemen—the smartest girl in Tennessee—and she’s got more horse sense than her old granddaddy!”
There was one more heat, of course; but it was only a procession, and those behind cannot swear to this day which way Little Sister went.