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mare. (She’d been let graze, but she came up to him of her own accord—a good sign, I figured.) “What’s his name?”
    â€œJeff Davis,” says Andy, grinning.
    â€œThen I guess he’s
got
to be a winner,” says Captain Broun, laughing back. He got off, took my bridle, stroked my nose and blowed into it.
    â€œHowdy, Jeff!” he says. “I’m Joe. Joe, see?” He talked to me some more—real friendly—and then one of the black folks, a groom called Zeb, took me away to unsaddle.
    â€œHe’s bought you right nuff,” says Monarch later on, when we was side by side in our stalls and Zeb was cleaning the mud off us.
    â€œHow do y’know that?” I asked.
    â€œI know the way they go ‘bout it,” he said. “They sort of spit, and clap their hands, and then there’s some small, round, shining thing, and sometimes they stand and drink right where they are. Yeah, you’ll be off—and, Jeff, I must say I’ll be sorry to see you go. As good a four-year-old as ever I ‘member to have seed. You’ll do well—long as you stay in the right hands. ‘Dare say you’re heading for a nice, safe, peaceful life, same as I’ve had.”
    After that I was jest waiting for this Joe to come in and take me away. ‘Fact, I was waiting all day, but he didn’t come. He didn’t come the next day neither, and when we went out of stables I could tell the mare was gone. I s’posed he’d come back, or maybe send a black fella to collect me, but as the days went by and nothing happened it jest slipped my mind and I went on loafing around as usual—as best I could for the rain, that is.
    â€˜Bout then Jim disappeared right off the place altogether. ‘Course, he’d been gone before sometimes, a day or two here, a day or two there—buying and selling, I guess; but now he was gone the way we began to wonder if he was ever coming back. This bothered me ‘cause, as I’ve told you, he’d been there all my life and I’d always thought of him as my man. ‘Long as he was round, I could stand for him to be too busy to have time to play with me, but to have him real gone was jest to know how close, really, we’d always been. Made me fret—same as I’d fretted after Ruffian went. Zeb understood all right. “Aw, Jeff,” he says one day when he was rubbing me down. “Horses is like black folks— ain’t got no say-so. Forever sayin’ good-bye. But Marse Jim, he comin’ back—he comin’ back sure.”
    I didn’t feel so sure. What men say to horses is mostly jest what they reckon they’d like, you know, or what they can’t say to anyone else. Even Marse Robert’s no different there.
    And then, one wet afternoon in the first of the fall, Jim
did
come back! I was in my stable; I heared his voice outside and I started to whinnying and stamping all I could. He opened the half-door, he was laughing up a storm, and he came striding in and slapped me on the withers. Then he gave me half an apple and began making a real fuss ‘bout me.
    â€œHi, there, Jeff!” he keeps saying. “You ready? ‘Cause you’re off, boy, you’re off to the War!”
    What I hadn’t reckoned on was he’d turned hisself into a soldier, like Captain Joe. All his clothes was that same kinda gray, butternut color, and they didn’t smell like any clothes I was used to. It made me sniff over his jacket and his sleeve. ‘Course, he jest stood and laughed, all friendly-like. ‘Twas the same old Jim—he made me sure ‘nuff of that, playing some of our old tricks, making me stand still while he shouted “Boo!” in my ear, and all that. He’d brung me a new horse blanket, too, real smart, and he started in then and there trying it, folding it and getting it comfortable on my back. Then he give me a bit of an