"
Thish-yer Smiley had a mare--the boys called her the fifteen-minute nag,
but that was only in fun, you know, because, of course, she was faster
than that--and he used to win money on that horse, for all she was so
slow and always had the asthma, or the distemper, or the consumption, or
something of that kind. They used to give her two or three hundred
yards' start, and then pass her under way; but always at the fag-end of
the race she'd get excited and desperate-like, and come cavorting and
straddling up, and scattering her legs around limber, sometimes in the
air, and sometimes out to one side amongst the fences, and kicking up
m-o-r-e dust and raising m-o-r-e racket with her coughing and sneezing
and blowing her nose--and always fetch up at the stand, just about a
neck ahead, as near as you could cypher it down.
And he had a little small bull-pup, that to look at him you'd think he
wan't worth a cent, but to set around and look ornery, and lay for a
chance to steal something. But as soon as money was upon him, he was a
different dog; his under-jaw'd begin to stick out like the fo'castle of
a steamboat, and his teeth would uncover, and shine savage like the
furnaces. And a dog might tackle him, and bully-rag him, and bite him,
and throw him over his shoulder two or three times, and Andrew
Jackson--which was the name of the pup--Andrew Jackson would never let
on but what _he_ was satisfied, and hadn't expected nothing else--and
the bets being doubled and doubled on the other side all the time, till
the money was all up; and then all of a sudden he would grab that other
dog jest by the j'int of his hind leg and freeze to it--not chaw, you
understand, but only jest grip and hang on till they throwed up the
sponge, if it was a year.
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