morning he come in, and Smiley up and asked him how she was, and he
said she was considerable better--thank the Lord for his inf'nit'
mercy--and coming on so smart that with the blessing of Prov'dence
she'd get well yet; and Smiley, before he thought, says, ‘Well, I'll
risk two-and-a-half she don't anyway.'"

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 cipher it
down.

And he had a little small bull-pup, that to look at him you'd think he
warn'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 up on 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 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,