Chapter 5: A Reminiscence

“It is easy enough to be pleasant
When life flows along like a song,
But the man worth while is the one who will smile
When everything goes dead wrong.”
WHEN Miss Hazy was awakened early that morning by a resonant neigh at the head of her bed, she mistook it for the trump of doom. Miss Hazy’s cottage, as has been said, was built on the bias in the Wiggses’ side yard, and the little lean-to, immediately behind Miss Hazy’s bedroom, had been pressed into service as Cuba’s temporary abiding-place.

After her first agonized fright, the old woman ventured to push the door open a crack and peep out.

“Chris,” she said, in a tense whisper, to her sleeping nephew—”Chris, what on airth is this here hitched to our shutter?”

Chris, usually deaf to all calls less emphatic than cold water and a broomstick, raised a rumpled head from the bed-clothes.

“Where at?” he asked.

“Right here!” said Miss Hazy, still in a terrified whisper, and holding fast the door, as if the specter might attempt an entrance. Chris did not stop to adjust his wooden leg, but hopped over to the door, and cautiously put an eye to the opening.

“Why, shucks, ‘t ain’t nothin’ but a hoss!” he said, in disgust, having nerved himself for nothing less than a rhinoceros, such as he had seen in the circus.

“How’d he git there?” demanded Miss Hazy.

Chris was not prepared to say.

All through breakfast Miss Hazy was in a flutter of excitement. She had once heard of a baby being left on a doorstep, but never a horse. When the limit of her curiosity was about reached, she saw Mrs. Wiggs coming across the yard carrying a bucket. She hastened to meet her.

“Mornin’,” called Mrs. Wiggs, brightly, in spite of her night’s vigil; “ain’t we got a fine hoss?”

Miss Hazy put the ash-barrel between herself and the animal, and hazarded a timid inspection, while Mrs. Wiggs made explanations, and called attention to Cuba’s fine points.

“Can’t you come in an’ take a warm?” asked Miss Hazy, as she concluded.

“Well, I b’lieve I will,” said Mrs. Wiggs. “I ain’t been over fer quite a spell. The childern kin clean up, bein’ it’s Saturday.” From seven to nine in the morning were the favorite calling-hours in the Cabbage Patch.

Mrs. Wiggs chose the chair which had the least on it, and leaned back, smiling affably as she remarked: “We ‘re used to hosses; this here’s the second one we ‘ve had.”