tered
and flitted more joyaceously than the females crowded together on that
stoop.

But I soon had something else to look at. Down in front of the hotel a
lot of horses were prancing to and fro, up and down, breaking into a run
here, wheeling round, going back, standing still, and generally cutting
about in a promiscuous manner, as if they were dying to have a dance in
the street.

Sisters, in all your born days, you never saw anything like those
horses! Slender, smooth as glass, with eyes like balls of fire, they
just took the shine off from everything in the horse line that I ever
set eyes on. But the animals were nothing compared to the funny-looking
creatures that rode them. A circus was nothing to them--neither is a
theatre. Some of them were dressed in red, some in yellow, some in blue;
one had on purple--all fitting just as tight as the skin to a rabbit's
back. Each one had a boy's cap on his head; and, in fact, they all
looked like boys out on a spree. There was a place just above the long
tavern where most of these fellows always took their horses after a
little run and blow--that was a little, cubby house, built up high from
the ground, in which some men stood like captains on a steamboat.

By and by there was a stir among the horses and a hustle among the men.

"They're going to start! they're going to start!" says everybody to
everybody else. A flag on the little house seemed to break down. Then
off the whole lot flew like a flock of wild birds. The flying horses
rushed along the road, beating time on the hard ground, and fairly
taking the breath from one's lips.

I gave a little scream, and jumped up. The whole crowd rushed forward,
and seemed as if it would pour itself over the railing of the long
stoop.

"Where have they gone?" says I. "What has become of 'em?"

"Here they come--here they come," shouted the whole crowd, answering me
all at once.

And they did come skimming along the road like
wildfire--flash--flash--now two horses abreast--now one ahead--now
another--then a sudden pull up, and the brown horse had won. Now it
seemed to me as if the whole squad came up pretty much at the same time,
but the whole crowd fell to clapping hands over the brown horse. I
clapped too, and swung out my handkerchief as well as the rest; for when
a multitude go into a thing like that it just sets one wild.

Then the flag took another fall, and off went another squad of horses,
and around the hill they wen