Rensselaer Republican, Volume 25, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 November 1892 — SCAGG’S MARE POLLY. [ARTICLE]

SCAGG’S MARE POLLY.

The Best Nancy flanks Time Some Year a Ago. harper's Monthly for November They were talking about horses, and more particularly about Nancy Hanks’s wonderful record of 2U5_. svery one seemed to be more cr less impressed with the marvellousness of this record except old Mr. Scagys, a 'retired farmer. ~ “She’s fast, yes,” he said, “Rut I oncet owned a mare up on the farm as could beat her. That naare was lightpin’ on legs. Polly was her name - named her after Mrs. Scaggs s mother, and a finer woman you never met. She could bake all around any other woman in the county, an’when it came to me bein’sick she'd nurse me tenderlier than as if I wasn't a sou-in-law at all, but her own boy. My, how she could trot!” “Your mother-in-law?” asked one of the circle. “No; the hoss,* snapped Soaggs, with fire in his eye. “I’m talkin' about the hoss. I bought her when she was eight years old from old Mrs. Tompkins. She wasn’t much on looks, Mrs. Tompkins wasn’t, but she was business all through. When her husband died she took charge of the grocery, an’ added a millinery department to it, an’ by Joe! inside of a year she was able to close up the grocery an’ do nothin’ but make hats. Tompkins used to hitch her up to the delivery wagon, you know, but of course —”

“You don’t mean to say that any man was ever mean enough to hitch his wife up to a grocery wagon and make her haul the packages about town?” queried the inquisitive member of the party. “Ain't said nothin’ o’ the kind,” retorted Scaggs. “Don’t you get too funny. I'm talkin’about the hoss. I was goin’ on to tell ye how when old Mrs. Tompkins got makin’ twodollar hats for the women folks and soilin’ ’em for ten, she give up the grocery business ’n so didn’t have any use for the hoss old Tompkins u cd to drive in his delivery wage-a. It happened I wanted a boss ’bout that time ’n so I e Med on old Mrs. Tompkins to talk it over. She was only eight years old at the time and hadn’t much style about her, though she was calcul ted to befaster’n anything else in town. I ast old Mrs. Tompkins what she’d take ’nd she says f 24, - : V' S' “ ‘That’s pretty high for an eightyear old,’ says 1. ‘l’ll give ye a dollar ’nd a half a year for the hoss. Thai s sl2. ’ “ ‘Make It two, and she’s yours,’ says old Mrs Tompkins. “‘Throw inn hat for my wife,’ says I, l ’nd it goes.’ “ ‘Done,’ says she. “So I bridled her, paid the money, ’nd led her home. Few days later some o’ the boys, knowin’'as I had sportin’ blood, came an’ ast me to let Tolly trot on a mile track for the record. My wife didn’t want me to at first, because she was a little off her feed, 'nd didn’t approve of racin’ anvbow, but when the boys offered a purse of $lO if she could beat 2.10. she let up. So I said all right, ’nd we set a date.” “Well, what was the result?” asked the inquisitive youth. “Two four for the mile,” said Scaggs. . “Two four?” cried the whole circle at once. “Yep,” said Scaggs. “But it was llie tract as heljj4cl her. There was somethin’ in the track as had ought to be give some o’ the credit, four minutes at the County Fair grounds.” “What was the special quality of the tract, Scaggs?” asked one Qf the party. “Waal,” said Scaggs, slowly, “as far as I coutfl make out, a mile on our track warn t rnore’n half a mile on any other.”