"Racing blood? Well, I jes' 'lows she has. Onct she wuz de fastest
horse in dis State or any odder, I reckon. She could clean beat ebbery
horse far and near. Many's de race I'se ridden her in, an' nebber onct
lost. My ole massa wuz powerful proud of us. Now he's gone, an' Dolly
an' me's gettin' old."

"How old are you, January?"

"Powerful ole, massa. I reckon I'm nigh on a hundred."

"That's impossible," interrupted Mrs. Davenport. "When were you born?"

He scratched his head to help his memory. "Well, de truf is, Miss
Mary"--he had heard Mr. Davenport call her Mary, and so from the start
he addressed her in Southern style--"I can't say 'xactly, but I know
I'se powerful old. I wuz an ole man when de wah broke out. I must
have been 'bout--well 'bout twenty then."

"The war was only about forty years ago, January," broke in Marian,
"and that would make you sixty now."

"I reckon, I'm 'bout dat." He had no idea of his age. The longer the
Davenports knew him, the more they realized the truth of this.
Sometimes he would make himself out a centenarian, and then, by his own
reckoning, he was not out of his teens.

"Get up, Dolly," he cried. She paid no more attention to this mild
command than she would have to the buzzing of a fly--probably not so
much.