They were the well-formed legs of a well-built, five-foot-ten man who
weighed a hundred and eighty pounds. Further, they told a tale of the
man. The left thigh was marred by a scar ten inches in length. Across
the left ankle, from instep to heel, were scattered half a dozen scars
the size of half-dollars. When Oh My prodded and pulled the left knee a
shade too severely, Forrest was guilty of a wince. The right shin was
colored with several dark scars, while a big scar, just under the knee,
was a positive dent in the bone. Midway between knee and groin was the
mark of an ancient three-inch gash, curiously dotted with the minute
scars of stitches.
A sudden, joyous nicker from without put the match between the pages of
the frog book, and, while Oh My proceeded partly to dress his master in
bed, including socks and shoes, the master, twisting partly on his
side, stared out in the direction of the nicker. Down the road, through
the swaying purple of the early lilacs, ridden by a picturesque cowboy,
paced a great horse, glinting ruddy in the morning sun-gold, flinging
free the snowy foam of his mighty fetlocks, his noble crest tossing,
his eyes roving afield, the trumpet of his love-call echoing through
the springing land.
Dick Forrest was smitten at the same instant with joy and anxiety--joy
in the glorious beast pacing down between the lilac hedges; anxiety in
that the stallion might have awakened the girl who laughed from the
round wooden frame on his wall. He glanced quickly across the
two-hundred-foot court to the long, shadowy jut of her wing of the
house. The shades of her sleeping-porch were down. They did not stir.
Again the stallion nickered, and all that moved was a flock of wild
canaries, upspringing from the flowers and shrubs of the court, rising
like a green-gold spray of light flung from the sunrise.
He watched the stallion out of sight through the lilacs, seeing visions
of fair Shire colts mighty of bone and frame and free from blemish,
then turned, as ever he turned to the immediate thing, and spoke to his
body servant.
"How's that last boy, Oh My? Showing up?"
"Him pretty good boy, I think," was the answer. "Him young boy.
Everything new. Pretty slow. All the same bime by him show up good."
"Why? What makes you think so?"
"I call him three, four morning now. Him sleep like baby. Him wake up
smiling just like you. That very good."
"Do I wake up smiling?" Forrest queried.
Oh My nodded his head violently.
"Many times, many years, I call you. Always your eyes open, your eyes
smile, your mouth smile, your face smile, you smile all over, just like
that, right away quick. That very good. A man wake up that way got
plenty good sense. I know. This new boy like that. Bime by, pretty
soon, he make fine boy. You see. His name Chow Gam. What name you call
him this place?"
Dick Forrest meditated.
"What names have we already?" he asked.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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