“Oh, yes,” said John, “I have ridden a good deal one time and another.”
“Never c’d see the sense on’t,” declared David. “I c’n imagine gettin’ on to a hoss’s back when ’twas either that or walkin’, but to do it fer the fun o’ the thing ’s more ’n I c’n understand. There you be,” he continued, “stuck up four five feet up in the air like a clo’espin, havin’ your backbone chucked up into your skull, an’ takin’ the skin off in spots an’ places, expectin’ ev’ry next minute the critter’ll git out f’m under ye—no, sir,” he protested, “if it come to be that it was either to ride a hossback fer the fun o’ the thing or have somebody kick me, an’ kick me hard, I’d say, ‘Kick away.’ It comes to the same thing fur ’s enjoyment goes, and it’s a dum sight safer.”
John laughed outright, while David leaned forward with his hands on his knees, looking at him with a broad though somewhat doubtful smile.
“That being your feeling,” remarked John, “I should think saddle horses would be rather out of your line. Was it a saddle horse that the Misses Verjoos were interested in?”
“Wa’al, I didn’t buy him fer that,” replied David, “an’ in fact when the feller that sold him to me told me he’d ben rode, I allowed that ought to knock twenty dollars off ’n the price, but I did have such a hoss, an’, outside o’ that, he was a nice piece of hoss flesh. I was up to the barn one mornin’, mebbe four years ago,” he continued, “when in drove the Verjoos carriage with one of the girls, the oldest one, inside, an’ the yeller-haired one on a hossback. ‘Good mornin’. You’re Mr. Harum, ain’t you?’ she says. ‘Good mornin’,’ I says, ‘Harum’s the name ’t I use when I appear in public. You’re Miss Verjoos, I reckon,’ I says.
“She laughed a little, an’ says, motionin’ with her head to’ds the carriage, ‘My sister is Miss Verjoos. I’m Miss Claricy.’ I took off my cap, an’ the other girl jest bowed her head a little.
“ ‘I heard you had a hoss ’t I could ride,’ says the one on hossback.
“ ‘Wa’al,’ I says, lookin’ at her hoss, an’ he was a good one,” remarked David, “ ‘fer a saddle hoss, I shouldn’t think you was entirely out o’ hosses long’s you got that one.’ ‘Oh,’ she says, this is my sister’s hoss. Mine has hurt his leg so badly that I am ’fraid I shan’t be able to ride him this summer.’ ‘Wa’al,’ I says, ‘I’ve got a hoss that’s ben rode, so I was told, but I don’t know of my own knowin’.’
“ ‘Don’t you ride?’ she says. ‘Hossback?’ I says. ‘Why, of course,’ she says. ‘No, ma’am,’ I says, ‘not when I c’n raise the money to pay my fine’ She looked kind o’ puzzled at that,” remarked David, “but I see the other girl look at her an’ give a kind of quiet laugh.”
“ ‘Can I see him?’ says Miss Claricy. ‘Cert’nly,’ I says, an’ went an’ brought him out. ‘Oh!’ she says to her sister, ‘ain’t he a beauty? C’n I try him?’ she says to me. ‘Wa’al,’ I says, ‘I guess I c’n resk it if you can, but I didn’t buy him fer a saddle hoss, an’ if I’m to own him fer any len’th of time I’d ruther he’d fergit the saddle bus’nis, an’ in any case,’ I says, ‘I wouldn’t like him to git a sore back, an’ then agin,’ I says, ‘I hain’t got no saddle.’
“ ‘Wa’al,’ she says, givin’ her head a toss, ‘if I couldn’t sit straight I’d never ride agin. I never made a hoss’s back sore in my life,’ she says. ‘We c’n change the saddle,’ she says, an’ off she jumps, an’, scat my ⸻!” exclaimed David, “the way she knowed about gettin’ that saddle fixed, pads, straps, girt’s, an’ the hull bus’nis, an’ put up her foot fer me to give her a lift, an’ wheeled that hoss an’ went out o’ the yard a-kitin’, was as slick a piece o’ hoss bus’nis as ever I see. It took fust money, that did,” said Mr. Harum with a confirmatory shake of the head. “Wa’al,” he resumed, “in about a few minutes back she come, lickity-cut, an’ pulled up in front of me. ‘C’n you send my sister’s hoss home?’ she says, ‘an’ then I shan’t have to change agin. I’ll stay on my hoss,’ she says, laughin’, an’ then agin laughin’ fit to kill, fer I stood there with my mouth open clear to my back teeth, not bein’ used to doin’ bus’nis ’ith quite so much neatniss an’ dispatch, as the sayin’ is.
“ ‘Oh, it’s all right,’ she says. ‘Poppa came home last night an’ I’ll have him see you this afternoon or to-morro’.’ ‘But mebbe he ’n I won’t agree about the price,’ I says. ‘Yes, you will,’ she says, ‘an’ if you don’t I won’t make his back sore’—an’ off they went, an’ left me standin’ there like a stick in the mud. I’ve bought an’ sold hosses to some extent fer a consid’able number o’ years,” said Mr. Harum reflectively, “but that partic’ler transaction’s got a peg all to itself.”
John laughed and asked, “How did it come out? I mean, what sort of an interview did you have with the young woman’s father, the popular Mr. Verjoos?”
“Oh,” said David, “he druv up to the office the next mornin’, ’bout ten o’clock, an’ come into the back room here, an’ after we’d passed the time o’ day, he says, clearin’ his throat in a way he’s got, ‘He-uh, he-uh!’ he says, ‘my daughter tells me that she run off with a hoss of yours yestidy in rather a summery manner, an—he-uh-uh—I have come to see you about payin’ fer him. What is the price?’ he says.
“ ‘Wa’al,’ I says, more ’n anythin’
