“Guess she hez all the time the’ is,” answered David.  “Wa’al,” he went on, “we passed the time o’ day, an’ talked a spell about the weather an’ all that, an’ finely I straightened up the lines as if I was goin’ on, an’ then I says:  ‘Oh, by the way,’ I says, ’I jest thought on’t.  I heard Dominie White was lookin’ fer a hoss that ‘d suit him.’  ’I hain’t heard,’ he says; but I see in a minute he had—­an’ it really was a fact—­an’ I says:  ‘I’ve got a roan colt risin’ five, that I took on a debt a spell ago, that I’ll sell reasonable, that’s as likely an’ nice ev’ry way a young hoss as ever I owned.  I don’t need him,’ I says, ‘an’ didn’t want to take him, but it was that or nothin’ at the time an’ glad to git it, an’ I’ll sell him a barg’in.  Now what I want to say to you, deakin, is this:  That hoss ’d suit the dominie to a tee in my opinion, but the dominie won’t come to me.  Now if you was to say to him—­bein’ in his church an’ all thet,’ I says, ’that you c’d get him the right kind of a hoss, he’d believe you, an’ you an’ me ‘d be doin’ a little stroke of bus’nis, an’ a favor to the dominie into the bargain.  The dominie’s well off,’ I says, ‘an’ c’n afford to drive a good hoss.’”

“What did the deakin say?” asked Aunt Polly as David stopped for breath.

“I didn’t expect him to jump down my throat,” he answered; “but I seen him prick up his ears, an’ all the time I was talkin’ I noticed him lookin’ my hoss over, head an’ foot.  ’Now I ‘member,’ he says, ‘hearin’ sunthin’ ‘bout Mr. White’s lookin’ fer a hoss, though when you fust spoke on’t it had slipped my mind.  Of course,’ he says, ‘the’ ain’t any real reason why Mr. White shouldn’t deal with you direct, an’ yit mebbe I could do more with him ‘n you could.  But,’ he says, ’I wa’n’t cal’latin’ to go t’ the village this mornin’, an’ I sent my hired man off with my drivin’ hoss.  Mebbe I’ll drop ‘round in a day or two,’ he says, ‘an’ look at the roan.’

“‘You mightn’t ketch me,’ I says, ‘an’ I want to show him myself; an’ more’n that,’ I says, ‘Dug Robinson’s after the dominie.  I’ll tell ye,’ I says, ’you jest git in ‘ith me an’ go down an’ look at him, an’ I’ll send ye back or drive ye back, an’ if you’ve got anythin’ special on hand you needn’t be gone three quarters of an hour,’ I says.”

“He come, did he?” inquired Mrs. Bixbee.

“He done so,” said David sententiously.  “Jest as I knowed he would, after he’d hem’d an’ haw’d about so much, an’ he rode a mile an’ a half livelier ’n he done in a good while, I reckon.  He had to pull that old broad-brim of his’n down to his ears, an’ don’t you fergit it.  He, he, he, he!  The road was jest full o’ hosses.  Wa’al, we drove into the yard, an’ I told the hired man to unhitch the bay hoss an’ fetch out the roan, an’ while he was bein’ unhitched the deakin stood ‘round an’ never took his eyes off’n him, an’ I knowed I wouldn’t sell the deakin no roan hoss that day, even if I wanted to.  But