Blister Jones Part 27

I saw Mrs. Dillon's lips move at Uncle Jake's ear. He raised his sightless eyes to the sky, his head nodding. It was as though he visioned paradise and found it good indeed.

I saw Blister's face turn from gray to red, from red to purple. The tenseness went out of his body, and suddenly he was gone, fighting his way through the crowd toward the steps.

I saw Judge Dillon's big arm gather in his trembling wife, and he held her close while the heavens rocked.

These things I saw through a blur, and then I felt Miss Goodloe sway at my side. She clutched at the railing, missed it and sank slowly into her seat. I but glimpsed a white face in which the eyes had changed from blue to violet, when it was covered by two slender gloved hands.

"Are you ill?" I called, as I bent above her.

She shook her head.

"It was too much," I barely heard.

I stood bewildered, and then my stupid mind cast out a soulless image that it held and fixed the true one there.

"I rarely make this kind of a fool of myself," she said at last.

"That I can quite believe," I replied, smiling down at her. She returned the smile with one that held a fine good comrades.h.i.+p, and we seemed to have known each other long. . . .

A crowd had packed themselves before the stall. As we reached it Blister appeared in the doorway.

"Get back! Get back!" he ordered, and pointing to the panting mare: "Don't you think she's earned a right to breath?"

The crowd fell away, except one rather shabby little old man.

"No one living," said he, "appreciates what she has done moh than myself, suh, but I desiah to lay ma hand on a real race mayah once moh befoh I die!"

Blister's face softened.

"Come on in, Mr. Sanford," he invited. "Why _you_ win the derby once, didn't you?"

"Thank you, suh. Yes, suh, many yeahs ago," said the little old man, and removing his battered hat he entered the stall, his white head bare.

Mrs. Dillon's face as she, too, entered the stall was tear-wet and alight with a great tenderness.

A boy dodged his way to where we stood. His face and the front of his blue and gold jacket were encrusted with dirt.

"You shoe-maker!" was Blister's scornful greeting.

"Honest to Gawd it wasn't my fault, Judge," the boy piped, sniffling.

"Honest to Gawd it wasn't! That sour-headed bay stud of Henderson's swung his ugly b.u.t.t under the mare's nose, 'n' just as I'm takin' back so the dog won't kick a leg off her, that mutt of a starter lets 'em go!"

"All right, sonny," said the judge. "You rode a nice race when you did get away."

"Much obliged, sir. I just wanted to tell you," said the boy, and he disappeared in the crowd as Judge Dillon joined those in the stall.

I stayed outside watching the group about Tres Jolie, and never had my heart gone out to people more. Deeply I wished to keep them in my life. . . I wondered if we would ever meet again. But pshaw!--I was nothing to them. Well, I would go back to Cincinnati when they left in the morning. . . .

"Can't we have you for a week at Thistle Ridge?" Mrs. Dillon stood looking up at me.

"Why, that's very kind--" I stammered.

"The north pasture is a _wilderness_ this year, the _loaf of bread, the jug of wine_ and the _bough_ are waiting. You can, of course, furnish your own _verses_."

"The picture is almost perfect," I said, and glanced at Miss Goodloe.

"Virginia, dear--" prompted Mrs. Dillon.

"As a _thou_--I always strive to please," drawled that blue-eyed young person. Oh, that I had been warned by her words!

Our purring flight to Louisville, when the day was done, became a triumph that mocked the dead Caesars. Of this the old negro on the front seat missed little. He was singing, softly singing. And leaning forward I listened.

"Curry a mule an' curry a hoss, Keep down trubbul wid de stable boss!"

sang Uncle Jake.

OLE MAN SANFORD

"Do you happen to notice a old duck that comes to the stalls at Loueyville just after the derby?" asked Blister.

"Was his name Sanford, and did he wish to pat the mare?" I asked in turn.

"That's him," said Blister. "Ole man Sanford. It ain't likely you ever heard of him, but everybody on the track knows him, if they ever hit the Loueyville meetin'. They never charge him nothin' to get into the gates. He ain't a owner no more, but way back there before I'm alive he wins the Kentucky Derby with Sweet Alice, 'n' from what I hears she was a grand mare. Ole man Sanford breeds Sweet Alice hisself. In them days he's got a big place not far from Loueyville.

They tell me his folks get the land original from the govament, when it's nothin' but timber. I hears once, but it don't hardly sound reasonable, that they hands over a half a million acres to the first ole man Sanford, who was a grandaddy of this ole man Sanford. If that's so, Uncle Sam was more of a sport in them days than since.

"I don't know how they pry it all loose from him, but one mawnin' ole man Sanford wakes up clean as a whistle. They've copped the whole works--he ain't got nothin'. So he goes to keepin' books fur a whisky house in Loueyville, 'n' he holds the job down steady fur twenty years.

The only time he quits pen-pus.h.i.+n' is when they race at Churchill Downs. From the first minute the meetin' opens till get-away day comes he's bright eyes at the rat hole. He don't add up no figgers fur n.o.body then. He just putters around the track. He's doped out as sort-a harmless by the bunch.

"After the Tres Jolie mare wins the derby fur me, ole man Sanford makes my stalls his hang-out. I ain't kickin', all he wants to do is to look at the mare 'n' chew the rag about her. That satisfies him completely.

"'Of all the hosses, suh, who have been a glory to our state,' he says, 'but one otheh had as game a heart as this superb creature. I refer to Sweet Alice, suh--a race mayah of such quality that the world marveled.

Not in a boastful manner, suh, but with propah humility, let me say that I had the honor to breed and raise Sweet Alice, and that she bore my colors when she won the tenth renewal of our great cla.s.sic.'

"He tells this to everybody that comes past the stalls, 'n' it ain't long till he begins to bring people around to look the mare over. From that he gets to watchin' how the swipes take care of her. Pretty soon he begins to call 'em if things ain't done to suit him.

"'Boy,' he'll say, 'that bandage is tighter than I like to see it.

Always allow the tendon a little play--do not impaieh the suhculation.'

"The boys eat this stuff up--it tickles 'em. They treat him respectful 'n' do what he tells 'em.

"'Everything O. K. to-day, sir?' they'll say.

"Ole man Sanford don't tumble they're kiddin' him.

"'Ah have nothing to complain of,' he says.