“What’s gotten into Jimmy?” the boy asked. “Why’s he talking like that?”

“He ain’t been feeling good again,” George said. “And sixty-two’s not so young any more, like Jimmy says. Age is like that, Tom. For years you go along thinking you’re a young bunny, then one morning you wake up and it’s hit you right smack in every bone and muscle in your body. Like it did with me some years ago. And like it’s doing to Jimmy now. And when that happens you find you don’t start figuring too far ahead any longer.” George leaned back in his chair. “Yep, I know what Jimmy means when he says he don’t want to wait two years for the Queen’s colt to come along.”

Shaking his head, the boy said, “But all winter long Jimmy felt good. I know he did. He’d talk about this foal of the Queen’s for hours at a time, telling me the colt was going to be the one he’d always wanted. You heard him, George. And you know our plans. He was going to send the Queen up to my uncle’s farm, where she was going to have her foal. And I was going to take care of them both this summer while you and Jimmy were at the fair tracks racing Symbol. It was just the setup he wanted for them. Uncle Wilmer has plenty of pasture; everything the Queen and her foal could want during the summer. I don’t understand why—”

“You got to be older to understand, Tom,” George said slowly. “And Jimmy started changing last summer at the races. He started feeling old then, but he never admitted it. But I saw he was more careful in his driving, never taking any chances of a spill. And before that they never came any nervier, any better than Jimmy Creech. He became very critical of the driving of other men, too. And he got crabby and, I thought, a little bitter. It was old age creeping up, but Jimmy didn’t know it. He’s stuck to harness racing for near forty years because he loves the sport and the horses. And that’s what made him great. But it’s different with him now. It’s like he’s sore because he’s suddenly discovered he’s getting old and he wants to take it out on everybody.”

George paused and took off his soiled cap, exposing his bald head to the rays of the sun that had broken through the overcast sky. “When you came along this last winter,” he went on, “and Jimmy took such a liking to you, I thought maybe he was coming out of it.