Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 August 1896 — VISIONS WHICH WARNED. [ARTICLE]

VISIONS WHICH WARNED.

Two Instances Where Dreams of Horses and Fire Came True. Dreams, like girls, “are queer,” and dreams wherein horses figure largely take rank among the queerest. It Is usual to head this column with a little horse talk—a sort of bait to tempt the wary horseman Into the discussions of minor subjects, and this time I shall give a few dreams, not of “fair women,” but of horses, told one day between heats. In the year eighteen ninety something a gentleman entered a promising pacer for a race to come off some time during the summer. He was speeding the horse on the last of the snow, and wrote to his wife, who was visiting In a distant town, that his prospects for a race horse were rosy. That night the lady, although not especially an admirer of horses, dreamed that she was sitting in the stand watching the finish of the race wherein her husband’s horse was to take part Replying to the letter, she said that his horse would win the race, the last heat several lengths ahead of a gray horse, the only other one she saw in her dream, and that the judge announced the time 2:20%. The letter caused a good deal of amusement In the family during the months previous to the race, and finally when the day came five horses started, among them being a dark gray. The dream came true in every respect, the race being won In three heats, and at the finish the gray was the only one in it; the rest just coming into the stretch; time, 2:20V4. Tlie dream I can vouch for, as I saw the letter weeks before the race took place.

Another gentleman who was sleeping at an inn beside the track where his horses were stabled dreamed that he saw the window of a stall containing a valuable young horse being stealthily opened from the outside. Tlieu fire flashed and fell among the straw, revealing the horses in a state of terror, pawing and snorting loudly. The dream was so vivid that he awoke and fancied that he could in reality hear the horse striking the walls of bis cell. He partially dressed and ran out, and not a moment too .soon. Some miscreant had thrown a cloth burning and soaked with oil in through the window. This had ignited the straw and In a few seconds more the horse must have perished, though fortunately as it was he was but slightly injured. —Trotter and Pacer.