CHAPTER XIII

IN THE CORNFIELD

Just about this time a race was going to be run.  There were a number of horses, with jockey lads on their backs, waiting for the signal to begin their fast pace around the track.  Up in the booth, where the judges and the starter were standing to give the signal, everything was in readiness.  The people around the race track were all excited, for they wanted to see which horse would win.

And then, just as the starter gave the word, and the jockey boys on their horses’ backs called to their steeds to run fast, out on the track walked the horse to whose neck Freddie was clinging!

At first the little fellow had been so startled when the animal to whose back he had scrambled walked out of the barn with him that he had not known what to do.  He just clung there.

But, finding that the horse was very gentle and did not try to reach back and bite his legs, Freddie began rather to like it.

“Go ’long, nice horsie!  Go ’long!” called Freddie, and he clapped his heels against the sides of the animal.

The horse went along all right—­fairly out on to the race track, and just as the race was starting!

“Here!  Where you going?”

“Come back with that horse!”

“Look out!  Stop him, somebody!  That boy will be hurt!”

These were only a few of the many cries that rose from the grandstand and the space in front of it when the people saw Freddie right in the path of the rushing horses.

“Ring that bell!” cried one of the judges to the starter.

The starter pulled the cord of the big gong which is rung to bring the horses back if they have not made an even start, as very often happens.

Clang! went the gong.  The jockeys on the backs of the horses knew what the ringing of the bell meant.  Some of them had begun to guide their horses so as not to run into Freddie and his mount, but there were so many racers that one or two of them might have bumped into the little fellow.  But when the jockeys heard the ringing of the bell they knew it was a false start and they pulled in their steeds and some turned back.

But now something else happened.  While the horse Freddie had climbed up on was kind and gentle, yet he was a race horse.  And as soon as he found himself out on the track he must have thought he had been ridden there to take part in a race.

At any rate, before Freddie could stop him, even if the little Bobbsey lad had been able to do this, the horse began to trot around the track.  Perhaps he thought the ringing of the bell meant for him to start.

So away he ran, going faster and faster with poor Freddie bobbing up and down, but still clinging to the animal’s neck.  It was all Freddie could do, as there was no saddle horn to grasp.

“Whoa!  Whoa!” begged the little chap.  “Nice horsie!  Whoa now!”