For him there was but one man of all the drivers he
whole-heartedly admired, Pop Geers, the shrewd and silent. "That Geers
of yours doesn't drive at all. He just sits up there like a stick," Tom
grumbled. "If a horse can win all right, he'll ride behind him all right.
What I like to see is a driver. Now you look at that Doble. You watch him
bring a horse through the stretch."
Jim looked at his employer with something like pity in his eyes. "Huh," he
exclaimed. "If you haven't got eyes you can't see."
The farm hand had two strong loves in his life, his employer's daughter and
the race horse driver, Geers. "Geers," he declared, "was a man born old
and wise." Often he had seen Geers at the tracks on a morning before some
important race. The driver sat on an upturned box in the sun before one of
the horse stalls. All about him there was the bantering talk of horsemen
and grooms. Bets were made and challenges given. On the tracks nearby
horses, not entered in the races for that day, were being exercised. Their
hoofbeats made a kind of music that made Jim's blood tingle. Negroes
laughed and horses put their heads out at stall doors. The stallions
neighed loudly and the heels of some impatient steed rattled against the
sides of a stall.
Every one about the stalls talked of the events of the afternoon and Jim
leaned against the front of one of the stalls and listened, filled with
happiness.
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