Again he entered the parlor, smelling of smoke and ham, and, crossing his legs, he continued.

Keyser “Excuse these little interruptions; the old woman’s kinder sing’ler, and you’ve got to humor her to live in peace with her.  Well, sir, as I said, I rode that extr’ordinary hoss down yer by the creek on that day to which I am referring and after passin’ the cornfield I was goin’ to wade him into the creek; just then, all of a, suddent, what should that hoss do but—­”

Mrs. Keyser (at the door again).  “Keyser, you lazy vagabone!  Why don’t you ‘tend to milkin’ them cows?  Not one mossel of supper do you put in your mouth this night unless you do the milkin’ right off.  You sha’n’t touch a crust, or my name’s not Emeline Keyser!”

Then Keyser leaped to his feet in a perfect frenzy of rage and hurled the chair at Mrs. Keyser; whereupon she seized the poker and came toward him with savage earnestness.  Then we adjourned to the front yard suddenly; and as Butterwick and I got into the carriage to go home, Keyser, with a humble expression in his eyes, said: 

“Gentlemen, I’ll tell you that hoss story another time, when the old woman’s calmer.  Good-day.”

I am going to ask him to write it out.  I am anxious to know what that horse did down at the creek.

Butterwick subsequently bought another horse from a friend of his in the city, but the animal developed eccentricities of such a remarkable character that he became unpopular.  Butterwick, in explaining the subject to me, said,

“I was surprised to find, when I drove him out for the first time, that he had an irresistible propensity to back.  He seemed to be impressed with a conviction that nature had put his hind legs in front, and that he could see with his tail; and whenever I attempted to start him, he always proceeded backward until I whipped him savagely, and then he would go in a proper manner, but suddenly, and with the air of a horse who had a conviction that there was a lunatic in the carriage who didn’t know what he was about.  One day, while we were coming down the street, this theory became so strong that he suddenly stopped and backed the carriage through the plate-glass window of Mackey’s drug-store.  After that I always hitched him up with his head toward the carriage, and then he seemed to feel better contented, only sometimes he became too sociable, and used to put his head over the dasher and try to chew my legs or to eat the lap-cover.

“Besides, the peculiar arrangement of the animal excited unpleasant remark when I drove out; and when I wanted to stop and would hitch him by the tail to a post, he had a very disagreeable way of reaching out with his hind legs and sweeping the sidewalk whenever he saw anybody that he felt as if he would like to kick.