And then Uncle John laughed till he nearly fell out of the sulky. “I said he’d be telling all about her first,” he said, while a little innocent-looking tot plucked the old man by the coat-tail long enough to get him to stop telling the crowd all about the marvelous breeding of the wonderful filly, as she naively remarked: “And the little thing did play off on you sure enough, didn’t she, Grandpa?” The crowd laughed, and Grandma picked her up, kissed her, and shouted: “And here’s the girl that saved her, gentlemen--the smartest girl in Tennessee--and she’s got more horse sense than her old granddaddy!” There was one more heat, of course; but it was only a procession, and those behind cannot swear to this day which way Little Sister went. JOHN TROTWOOD MOORE. A History of the Hals By JOHN TROTWOOD MOORE. [Illustration: CAPT. THOMAS GIBSON. Owner of Gibson’s Tom Hal and John Dilliard.] CHAPTER I. THE PACING RACE HORSE. Full-muscled, clean, clear-cut, without a flaw, Deep-chested--shallow where the quick flanks draw-- Round-footed, flat and flinty in the bone, Eyes full and flashing, as the opal stone, Neck like the deep-grooved classic column’s ply-- Massive at base, tap’ring towards the sky, Ears thin and slender, velvet-pointed, fine As the unbursted leaflets of the columbine. Shoulders well back, slanting, thin and strong, Ribbed close as steel, where girders run along; Quarters long and massive, rubber-hard and round, Quick in the stride, but quicker in rebound-- Back like the beam that held Pantheon’s dome-- Gods, give the word, and see this horse come home! JOHN TROTWOOD MOORE. The race horse has come, by common consent to represent all that is graceful and grand in the animal kingdom. The culmination of perfected strength and speed, courage and intelligence, he stands, nevertheless, the model of patience, gentleness and forbearance. How wonderful it seems that in this dumb creature, whose mental gifts, compared to man’s, are as a clay bed to a bank of violets, yet has he reached, through the misty channels of mere instinct, a physical perfection and often a moral excellence which his maker and molder may never attain! He is amiable in spite of force and desperate races, and often blows and cruelty; he is gentle, notwithstanding a training tending to make him a whirlwind of wrath and a tornado of tempests; he is honest in spite of the dishonesty of those around him and docile and contented despite the fact that there slumbers within him like sleeping bolts in a flying cloud the spirit of madness gathered from the nerve granaries of a long line of unnumbered ancestors.