"Hev ye ever wintered here?" said the Deacon, merrily, while the
others snickered. "It's kinder cool."

"Not yet," said Boney. "I come from the boundless confines o'
Kansas, where the noblest of our kind have their abidin'-place
among the sunflowers on the threshold o' the settin' sun in his
glory."

"An' they sent you ahead as a sample ~" said Rick, with an amused
quiver of his long, beautifully groomed tail, as thick and as
fine and as wavy as a quadroon's back hair.

"Kansas, sir, needs no advertisement. Her native sons rely on
themselves an' their native sires. Yes, sir."

Then Tweezy lifted up his wise and polite old head. His
affliction makes him bashful as a rule, but he is ever the most
courteous of horses.

"Excuse me, suh," he said slowly, "but, unless I have been
misinfohmed, most of your prominent siahs, suh, are impo'ted
from Kentucky; an' I'm from Paduky."

There was the least little touch of pride in the last words.

"Any horse dat knows beans," said Muldoon, suddenly (he had been
standing with his hairy chin on Tweezy's broad quarters), "gits
outer Kansas 'fore dey crip his shoes. I blew in dere from
Ioway in de days o' me youth an' innocence, an' I wuz grateful