Our colt was now full grown and broken to saddle, but not to harness. Muddy, the dog, and Jack were great friends. The dog slept in the same stall with the colt and they often frolicked together in the pasture. When we reached the pasture the colt and dog were on a frolic--the colt jumping and wheeling and prancing, while Muddy jumped, barked and capered in front of him. Turning to my uncle the trader said: “I will give you two hundred dollars for that colt. He isn’t worth it; but I know just where I can sell him.” My uncle refused to sell, and the man handing uncle his business card, said: “Well, when you get ready to sell, let me know.” After he had started away I turned to speak to Jot, but found he had disappeared. Later I came upon him behind the barn talking to the man who had accompanied the horse trader, and I overheard him using some words strange to me--seemingly in some foreign language--at any rate not common English. As I came upon them they parted, and when I asked Jot what they were talking about he made no definite reply, but said, “I am so glad they didn’t sell Jack.” His evasion made me angry, and I turned away to go to the house. Jot called after me, but I refused to speak or turn back; and that night we went to bed without a good-night greeting as was usual with us. The first thing, after I awoke, I went to Jot’s room, but he was gone. Then I went down to breakfast, expecting to find him at the table; but he was not there. “Where is Jot?” I asked Uncle Jim. With provoking deliberation he removed his pipe from his lips saying “Gone.” “Where has he gone?” I asked impatiently. “Don’t know--suspect he has gone to enlist--said something about it.” And that was all I could learn--though I half suspected that uncle was keeping something back,--something he didn’t think it good for me to know. After this I became more dissatisfied than ever, but still continued my work on the farm, expecting to have a letter from Jot. But no tidings of him came. I constantly pestered Uncle Jim, who was made my guardian, to let me enlist. But he put me off by saying: “Time enough--wait awhile.” Later on, uncle said to me, “I guess we shall have to sell Jack after all; I have been offered a good price for him by Colonel Walker. The interest on the mortgage is coming due this month, and I am a little short of money.” So Jack was sold, and that made me still more discontented, and not long after I “broke out,” as Aunt Joe called it, by saying, “Uncle, I want to enlist. If I don’t enlist they will, like as not, draft me. Just think of a Stark being drafted! I am bigger than Jot, and just as good for a soldier. They will take me, and I am lonesome without Jot.” Uncle Jim had finished his breakfast, pushed back from the table, and began smoking his pipe as was his custom after the morning meal.