s fetched him. I alwus carried
them straps, though, till the last two or three times."

"Wa'al, what's the deakin kickin' about, then?" asked Aunt Polly.
"You're jest sayin' you broke him of balkin'."

"Wa'al," said David slowly, "some hosses will balk with some folks an'
not with others. You can't most alwus gen'ally tell."

"Didn't the deakin have a chance to try him?"

"He had all the chance he ast fer," replied David. "Fact is, he done
most of the sellin', as well 's the buyin', himself."

"How's that?"

"Wa'al," said David, "it come about like this: After I'd got the hoss
where I c'd handle him I begun to think I'd had some int'restin' an'
valu'ble experience, an' it wa'n't scurcely fair to keep it all to
myself. I didn't want no patent on't, an' I was willin' to let some
other feller git a piece. So one mornin', week before last--let's see,
week ago Tuesday it was, an' a mighty nice mornin' it was, too--one o'
them days that kind o' lib'ral up your mind--I allowed to hitch an'
drive up past the deakin's an' back, an' mebbe git somethin' to
strengthen my faith, et cetery, in case I run acrost him. Wa'al, 's I
come along I seen the deakin putterin' 'round, an' I waved my hand to
him an' went by a-kitin'. I went up the road a ways an' killed a little
time, an' when I come back there was the deakin, as I expected. He was
leanin' over the fence, an' as I jogged up he hailed me, an' I pulled
up.

"'Mornin', Mr. Harum,' he says.

"'Mornin', deakin,' I says. 'How are ye? an' how's Mis' Perkins these
days?'

"'I'm fair,' he says; 'fair to middlin', but Mis' Perkins is ailin'
some--as _usyul_' he says."

"They do say," put in Mrs. Bixbee, "thet Mis' Perkins don't hev much of
a time herself."

"Guess she hez all the time the' is," answered David. "Wa'al," he went
on, "we passed the time o' day, an' talked a spell about the weather an'
all that, an' finely I straightened up the lines as if I was goin' on,
an' then I says: 'Oh, by the way,' I says, 'I jest thought on't. I heard
Dominie White was lookin' fer a hoss that 'd suit him.' 'I hain't
heard,' he says; but I see in a minute he had--an' it really was a
fact--an' I says: 'I've got a roan colt risin' five, that I took on a
debt a spell ago, that I'll sell reasonable, that's as likely an' nice
ev'ry way a young hoss as ever I owned. I don't need him,' I says, 'an'
didn't want to take him, but it was that or nothin' at the time an' glad
to git it, an' I'll sel