Thoroughbreds

Purchase of this book includes * trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for *. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Ill In John Porter's home horse racing had no debasing effect. If a man couldn't race squarely?run to win every time?he had better quit the game, Porter had always asserted. He raced honestly and bet openly, without cant and without hypocrisy; just as a financier might have traded in stocks in Wall Street; or a farmer might plant his crops and trust to the future and fair weather to yield him a harvest in *. So much of the racing life was on honor?so much of the working out of it was in the open, where purple- clovered fields gave rest, and health, and strength, that the home atmosphere was impregnated with moral truth, and courage, and frankness, in its influence on the girl's development. Every twist of her sinewy figure bore mute testimony to this; every glance from her wondrous eyes was an eloquent substantiating argument in favor of the life she affected. John Porter looked down at the small, rather dark, upturned face, and a half-amused smile of content came to his lips. Did you see Lucretia ? he asked. Isn't she a beauty ? Hasn't Dixon got her in the pink of condition? I saw nothing else, father. She beckoned to him with her eyes, tipped her head forward, and whispered: Those people behind us have backed Lauzanne. I think they're racing folks. The father smiled as an uncultured woman's voice from one row back jarred on his ear. Allis noticed the smile and its provocation, and said, speaking hastily, I don't mean like you, father? Like us, he corrected. Well, perhaps; they're more like betting or training people, though. She put her hand on his arm warningly, as a high-pitched falsetto penetrated the drone of their half-whispered words, saying, I tell you Dick knows all about this Porter mare, Lucretia. But I like her, a bari...