The Shetland pony, meanwhile, was standing at a safe distance from Uncle Zack's mule, looking very wicked indeed with its long forelock hanging frowsily between its eyes, and seeming to have comprehended some of the slanders which this old darky--making a great pretense of being angry--had uttered. To the side, and ready to champion her little friend, stood Mesmie, daughter of Bradford, the overseer, with one bare foot pressing nervously on the instep of its mate, and her fingers twisting the end of her long, golden plait. This was apprehension, not embarrassment. The old negro's pretended anger invariably deceived this little girl--as it frequently puzzled the boy. "Dar ain' no use talkin'," Uncle Zack stamped the ground. "I'se been waitin' on de May fam'ly fer up'ards of a hund'ed yeahs, an' dis am de fu'st time any of 'em done 'sult me!" There was a pause while Bip looked at him with wide, serious eyes, and the Colonel from his secluded vantage point silently chuckled. "I didn't mean to insult you, Uncle Zack," the little boy explained. "I only said that Daniel, here, couldn't have anything to do with such a mis'rable mule. Daniel's a thoroughbred!" "Thurerbred!" Zack scornfully repeated. "Jes' heah dat! Why, he ain' big 'nough to be no kind o' bred! He ain' got 'nough blood in 'im to call it real breedin'!" The boy's face flushed. "He's by Shadeland Wildon," he cried, "and out of Hurstbourne Trinket! I'd like to see you find any pony stock better'n that!" Uncle Zack appeared to ponder over this. As a matter of fact, he had once told Bip this same thing in these very words. Now he temporized by squinting up at the sun. "An' what's more," the little fellow hotly declared, "they're both registered way back to the war--an' lots before that! Grandfather says if he didn't know Daniel was Daniel, he'd think he was Shadeland Wildon every time I rode him in here--'cause he's got his sire's chestnut an' white markin's to a dot, an' his size to a hair! Now what you got to say 'bout breedin'!" "'Pears to me," the old fellow soliloquized, still squinting upward, "'twon't be long 'foh lunch time. Didn' I heah somefin 'bout gwine down whar de Willer-de-Wispies lives at?" "Oh, yes," Bip cried, his anger passing like a bird shadow. "But, Uncle Zack, you've got to ride a horse! I can't have Daniel learnin' laziness from that old mule!" "Laziness!" the old man exclaimed. Then, all at once, he seemed to be watching something in the trees. "I 'member onct," he began in a ruminating fashion, "when a li'l boy come up to me an' sez: 'Unc Zack,' he sez, 'which is de oldes', ladies or gemmen?'"