"It's that red-headed boy of Joe Crofton's," chuckled Aunt Jane. "Nobody'd ever think he was born in Kentucky; now, would they? Old Man Bob Crawford used to say that every country boy in this state was a sort o' half-brother to a horse. But that boy yonder ain't no kin to the filly he's tryin' to ride. There's good blood in that filly as sure's you're born. I can tell by the way she throws her head and uses her feet. She'll make a fine saddle-mare, if her master ever gets hold of her. Jest look yonder, will you?" The horse had come to a stand; she gave a sudden backward leap, raised herself on her hind legs, came down on all fours with a great clatter of hoofs, and began a circular dance over the smooth road. Round she went, stepping as daintily as a maiden at a May-day dance, while the rider clung to the reins, dug his bare heels into the glossy sides of his steed, and yelled "whoa," as if his salvation lay in that word. Then, as if just awakened to a sense of duty, the filly ceased her antics, tossed her head with a determined air, and broke into a brisk, clean gallop that would have delighted a skilled rider, but seemed to bring only fresh dismay to the soul of Joe Crofton's boy. His arms flapped dismally and hopelessly up and down; a gust of wind seized his ragged cap and tossed it impishly on one of the topmost boughs of the Osage-orange hedge; his protesting "whoa" voiced the hopelessness of one who resigns himself to the power of a dire fate, and he disappeared ingloriously in a cloud of summer dust. Whereupon we returned to the prosaic work of bean-shelling, with the feeling of those who have watched the curtain go down on the last scene of the comedy. "I declare to goodness," sighed Aunt Jane breathlessly, as she stooped to recover her pan, "I ain't laughed so much in I don't know when. It reminds me o' the time Sam Amos rode in the t'u'nament." And she began laughing again at some recollection in which I had no part. "Now, that's right curious, ain't it? When I set here talkin' about fairs, that boy comes by and makes me think o' how Sam rode at the fair that year they had the t'u'nament. I don't know how long it's been since I thought o' that ride, and maybe I never would 'a' thought of it again if that boy of Joe Crofton's hadn't put me in mind of it." I dropped my butter-beans for a moment and assumed a listening attitude, and without any further solicitation, and in the natural course of events, the story began.