Miller Chase plied an honest trade in Medford rum while the farmers waited for the wobbly stones to grind their corn or the saws to saw their logs. Horses and oxen grazed at hand, taking the opportunity to enjoy the delicious grass growing so abundantly in the rich, fertile valley. One day True chanced to remark upon this grass to his friend Old Grey. “Know you not,” she asked, astonished at his youthful ignorance, “how it came to be broadcast here?” “Not I!” whinneyed True. Suffice it that he was enjoying its satisfying plentifulness to the fullest after his hard day in the plow. And she told him. After the massacre, in which her master, Experience Davis, had been captured, in plundering Zadock Steele’s hut, before burning it, an Indian found a sack of valuable grass-seed. He put it over his shoulder and started off down the valley. After a while he noticed, vaguely, that his load, unlike the usual manner of loads, became lighter the farther he travelled, but he stupidly did not think to glance over his shoulder at his burden. When he reached Dog River there was not a grass-seed left in the sack! Through a tiny hole in the bag he had, unintentionally, sown this wonderful seed all the way from Randolph, and for years it grew up, unmowed, uneaten, and almost man-high, to make the White River Valley famous, and supply grass and hay for farmers and horses. FOOTNOTES: [6] Morgan Horses, Linsley, page 136. CHAPTER X. IN WHICH “TRUE” BECOMES “JUSTIN MORGAN.” Once or twice a week it was the custom among the farmers, waiting at Chase’s Mill, to pass the time testing their strength or that of their horses. It was healthful sport and kept them and their beasts in trim. Many were the jugs of Medford rum consumed on these occasions, and anyone having a horse to try, or a new test of strength for the men, was welcomed. Running their horses short distances for small stakes came to be very popular.[7] A course of eighty rods was measured, starting at the mill and extending along the highway; a line was drawn across the road, called a “scratch,” the horses were ranged in a row, and at the drop of a hat away they went, cheered by the crowd. It so happened that Evans and True, who never finished their work until dusk, were rarely at these tests. Evans, himself, was too tired to join in the sports, but True often thought he would like to try his strength against the larger, heavier horses. One day, coming along the River Road to the mill, his heavy farm-harness and tug-chains still dangling on True, they passed Master Justin Morgan--he stood under a maple tree and was lilting an old French song learned from the Canadian lumbermen, called “A la Claire Fontaine.” True and Evans paused to listen. Everyone liked Master Morgan for his sweet voice and gentle manners.