It was sixteen years ago that Joel drove home with Flora IV, a black mare without a leg to stand on, but with a record of 2.12-3/4 There was large fixing of the little barn for her, and much rubbing-down of withers. One day Joel was seen wandering over the knoll here near the house, kicking stones around. Something was the matter. I sauntered out toward my barn casually and called to him. Picking up a piece of rock in the pasture, he staggered with it to the fence, and fixing it into the wall, said with labored breath, “Flora IV has a foal!” And, lifting another stone off the wall, for ballast, he strode up the hill and over, and down to his barn, not knowing the “Magnificat,” it may be, but singing it in his heart all the way down. And this happened on the very hill which this day I bought with the field by the side of the house. Joel owned the field then. But he longed for a fast horse. I never set my heart on a fast horse; but I cannot resist a field. I did not covet this field of Joel’s. I merely dreamed of it as part of my dooryard, and waited--longer than Jacob waited for Rachel. What a dream she must have been! But let me come back to Joel and Flora and the foal. My youngest boy was born that same summer--sixteen years ago--the double event in Joel’s mind wearing the mixed complexion of twins. He had had no children till the colt came, and naturally he spoiled her. She was a willful little thing by inheritance, though--arch, skittish, and very pretty; and long before she wore shoes had got the petulant habit of kicking the siding off the barn at any delay of dinner. She should have been broken by her second birthday, but Joel would take no risks; and in the third summer, though he “had her used to leather,” he needed a steady old horse to hitch her with, and she came up to her fourth birthday untrained. Then, the first time he took her out, she behaved so badly, and cut herself so, forward, that it was necessary to turn her loose for months. Then she was sent away to be broken, but came back a little more willful than ever, and prettier than ever, if possible. That winter Joel had to give up his milk-route on account of sickness, and with the opening of spring got the blacksmith to take the colt in hand. He took her, and threw her, dislocating her shoulder. Then he pulled off her new shoes, and she was put into the boxstall to get well. After that, I don’t know just why, but we talked of other things than the colt. She kicked a board off the back of the barn one day, sending a splinter whizzing past my head, but neither of us noticed it. She was seven years old now, a creature shaped for speed, but Joel was not strong enough to manage her, and a horse like this could so easily be harmed. In fact, he never harnessed her again.