“‘It ain’t possible! marciful heavens! you don’t ’spicion?’ wen the sound of the hosses comin’, roused them up like a touch of the agur, an’ broke off their sarpent-talk. “Dad run out to see what was to pay, but when he seed the hosses so close together, the passun spurrin’, and mam ridin’ close war skase whar she cum, he knew her fix in a second, and ’tarmined to help her; so clinchin’ a saplin’, he hid ’hind a stump ’bout ten steps off, and held on for the hosses. On they went in beautiful style, the passun’s spurs tellin’ terrible, and mam’s shoe operatin’ ‘no small pile of punkins,’—passun stretched out the length of two hosses, while mam sot as stiff and strate as a bull yearling in his fust fight, hittin’ her nag fust on one side, next on t’other, and the third for the passun, who had chawed the horn till little of the saddle, and less of his teeth war left, and his voice sounded as holler as a jackass-nicker in an old saw-mill. “The hosses war nose and nose, jam up together so close that mam’s last kiverin’ and passun’s flag had got lockt, an’ ’tween bleached domestic and striped lindsey made a beautiful banner for the pious racers. “On they went like a small arthquake, an’ it seemed like it war goin’ to be a draun race; but dad, when they got to him, let down with all his might on Colt, scarin’ him so bad that he jumpt clean ahead of passun, beatin’ him by a neck, buttin’ his own head agin the meetin’-house, an’ pitchin’ mam, like a lam for the sacryfise, plum through the winder ’mongst the mourners, leavin’ her only garment flutterin’ on a nail in the sash. The men shot their eyes and scrambled outen the house, an’ the woman gin mam so much of their close that they like to put themselves in the same fix. “The passun quit the circut, and I haven’t been home yet.” XVII. A SHARK STORY. “Well, gentlemen, I’ll go ahead, if you say so. Here’s the story. It is true, upon my honour, from beginning to end—every word of it. I once crossed over to Faulkner’s island to fish for _tautaugs_, as the north-side people call black fish, on the reefs hard by, in the Long Island Sound. Tim Titus (who died of the dropsy down at Shinnecock point, last spring) lived there then. Tim was a right good fellow, only he drank rather too much.