m square in the eye--'one
confidence deserves another. I've got a nasty habit of my own, but I
hope you won't pay no 'tention to it, for it's a habit, an' I can't
help it. I don't mean nothin' by it, an' the boys all understand it,
but when a man cusses me I allers knock him down--do it befo' I
think'--I said--'jes' a habit I've got.'

"Well, he never cussed me all the time I was there. My stock went up
with the old man an' my chances was good to get the gal, if I hadn't
made a fool hoss-trade; for with old man Galloway a good hoss-trade
covered all the multitude of sins in a man that charity now does in
religion. In them days a man might have all the learnin' and virtues
an' graces, but if he cudn't trade hosses he was tinklin' brass an'
soundin' cymbal in that community.

"The man that throwed the silk into me was Jud Carpenter--the same
feller that's now the Whipper-in for these mills. Now, don't be
scared," said the old man soothingly as Bud's scary eyes looked about
him and he clutched the buggy as if he would jump out--"he'll not
pester you now--he's kept away from me ever since. He swapped me a
black hoss with a star an' snip, that looked like the genuine thing,
but was about the neatest turned gold-brick that was ever put on an
unsuspectin' millionaire.

"Well, in the trade he simply robbed me of a fine mare I had, that
cost me one-an'-a-quarter. Kathleen an' me was already engaged, but
when old man Galloway heard of it, he told me the jig was up an' no
such double-barrel idiot as I was shu'd ever leave any of my colts in
the Galloway paddock--that when he looked over his gran'-chillun's
pedigree he didn't wanter see all of 'em crossin' back to the same
damned fool! Oh, he was nasty. He said that my colts was dead sho' to
be luffers with wheels in their heads, an' when pinched they'd quit,
an' when collared they'd lay down. That there was a yaller streak in
me that was already pilin' up coupons on the future for tears and
heartaches an', maybe a gallows or two, an' a lot of uncomplimentary
talk of that kind.

"Well, Kathleen cried, an' I wept, an' I'll never forgit the night
she gave me a little good-bye kiss out under the big oak tree an'
told me we'd hafter part.

"The old man maybe sized me up all right as bein' a fool, but he
missed it on my bein' a quitter. I had no notion of being fired an'
blistered an' turned out to grass that early in the game. I wrote her
a poem every other day, an' lied between