t to you?

SAMUEL COWLES AND HIS HORSE ROYAL

The day on which I was twelve years old my father said to me: "Samuel,
walk down the lane with me to the pasture-lot; I want to show you
something." Never suspicioning anything, I trudged along with father,
and what should I find in the pasture lot but the cunningest,
prettiest, liveliest colt a boy ever clapped eyes on!

"That is my birthday present to you," said father. "Yes, Samuel, I
give the colt to you to do with as you like, for you 've been a good
boy and have done well at school."

You can easily understand that my boyish heart overflowed with pride
and joy and gratitude. A great many years have elapsed since that
time, but I have n't forgotten and I never shall forget the delight of
that moment, when I realized that I had a colt of my own--a real, live
colt, and a Morgan colt, at that!

"How old is he, father?" I asked.

"A week old, come to-morrow," said father.

"Has Judge Phipps seen him yet?" I asked.

"No; nobody has seen him but you and me and the hired man."

Judge Phipps was the justice of the peace. I had a profound respect
for him, for what he did n't know about horses was n't worth knowing; I
was sure of this, because the judge himself told me so. One of the
first duties to which I applied myself was to go and get the judge and
show him the colt. The judge praised the pretty creature inordinately,
enumerating all his admirable points and predicting a famous career for
him. The judge even went so far as to express the conviction that in
due time my colt would win "imperishable renown and immortal laurels as
a competitor at the meetings of the Hampshire County Trotting
Association," of which association the judge was the president, much to
the scandal of his estimable wife, who viewed with pious horror her
husband's connection with the race-track.

"What do you think I ought to name my colt?" I asked of the judge.

"When I was about your age," the judge answered, "I had a colt and I
named him Royal. He won all the premiums at the county fair before he
was six year old."

That was quite enough for me. To my thinking every utterance of the
judge's was ex cathedra; moreover, in my boyish exuberance, I fancied
that this name would start my colt auspiciously upon a famous career; I
began at once to think and to speak of him as the prospective winner of
countless honors.

From the moment when I first set eyes on Royal I was his sta