The Race.
"Deacon Tubman!" said the parson, as he clutched the rim of his tall hat, against which, as the horse tore along, the snow chips were pelting in showers, more stoutly, "Deacon Tubman! do you think the pacer will beat us?"
"Not if I can help it! not if I can help it!" yelled the deacon in reply, as, with something like a reinsman's skill, he instinctively lifted Jack to another spurt. "Go it, old boy!" he shouted encouragingly. "Go along with you, I say!" and the parson, also carried away by the whirl of the moment, cried, "Go along, old boy! Go along with you, I say!"
This was the very thing, and the only thing, that huge horse, whose blood was now fairly aflame, wanted to rally him for the final effort; and, in response to the encouraging cries of the two behind him, he gathered himself together for another burst of speed, and put forth his collected strength with such tremendous energy and suddenness of movement that the little deacon, who had risen, and was standing erect in the sleigh, fell back into the arms of the parson, while the great horse rushed over the line a winner by a clear length, amid such cheers and roars of laughter as were never heard in that village before.
Nor was the horse any more the object of public interest and remark—we may say favoring remark—than the parson, who suddenly found himself the centre of a crowd of his own parishioners, many of whom would scarcely be expected as participants of such a scene, but who, thawed out of their iciness by the genial temper of the day, and vastly excited over Jack's contest, thronged upon the good man, laughing as heartily as any jolly sinner in the crowd.
So everybody shook hands with the parson and wished him a Happy New Year, and the parson shook hands with everybody and wished them all many happy returns; and everybody praised old Jack, and rallied the deacon on his driving; and then everybody went home good-natured and happy, laughing and talking about the wonderful race, and the change that had come over Parson Whitney.
And as for Parson Whitney himself, the day and its fun had taken twenty years from his age, and nothing would answer but the deacon must go home and eat the New Year's pudding at the parsonage; and he did. And at the table they laughed and talked over the funny incidents of the day, and joked each other as merrily as two boys. Then Parson Whitney told some reminiscences of his college days, and the scrapes he got into, and a riot between town and gown, when he carried the "Bully's Club;" and the deacon responded by narrating his experiences with a certain Deacon Jones's watermelon patch when he was a boy, and over their tales and their mulled cider they laughed till they cried, and roared so lustily at the remembered frolics of their youthful days that the old parsonage rang, the books on the library shelves rattled, and several of the theological volumes actually gaped with horror.
But at last the stories were all told, the jokes all cracked, and the laughter all laughed, and the little deacon wished the parson good-by, and jogged happily homeward; but more than once he laughed to himself, and said, "Bless my soul! I didn't know the parson had so much fun in him." And long the parson sat by the glowing grate after the deacon had left him, musing of other days, and the happy, pleasant things that were in them; and many times he smiled, and once he laughed outright at some remembered folly, for he said, "What a wild boy I was, and yet I meant no wrong; and the dear old days were very happy."
Ay, ay! Parson Whitney, the dear old days were very happy, not only to thee, but to all of us, who, following our sun, have fared westward so long that the light of the morning shows dull through the dim haze of memory. But happier than even the old days will be the young ones, I ween, when, following still westward, we suddenly come to the gates of the new east and the morning once more; and there, in the dawn of a day which is cloudless and endless, we find our lost youth and its loves, to lose them and it no more forever, thank God!