And to Lucy late in the afternoon: “Why, I had no idea what thoughts had been forming in that stony old head of his! It was one o’clock for heaven’s sake, I was just exhausted, finally I just threw him out. I said, ‘Smash, go home!’ What in the world was he thinking?”

It was not a big day at Dykes’s Feed and Seed. Smash Dykes sold a ball of string and loaded fifty bales of hay for seats around a bonfire, but he didn’t come out of the back of the store all day.

The next day was festival day, but long before daylight Lucy’s telephone rang. It was Mrs. Horne, in a shrieking whisper: “Lucy! There is something in my yard! Lucy! Smash Dykes did this! What am I going to do? Lucy, please help me! Please just come over here. I’ll pay you anything, I need help!”

Mrs. Horne met Lucy in the dark and led her through the dark house. “I can’t turn on lights,” she whispered. “No one can know about this. Look!” She threw open the back door. “Just look!”

There was a magnificent old crape-myrtle tree from the old Florinna days, its smooth trunks gleaming white, and a little row of Indian-hawthorn bushes Mrs. Horne had put in, and then right in the middle of the flower bed where the yard began to slope down to the river, something big and dark looked almost like a horse.

“What in the world…,” said Lucy.

It was a horse. It was the bronze horse from the entrance to the model farm, gleaming in the moonlight of Mrs. Horne’s backyard, its head held high and its mane and tail flying, its majesty slightly impaired by a staggering tilt to the left where its supporting front leg had punched into the soft dirt of Mrs. Horne’s Ophiopogon border.

“What was he thinking!” said Mrs. Horne.

“Why in the world…”

“Because I won’t marry him!” shrieked Mrs. Horne. “The very idea! Give up that alimony check for a man who sells chicken feed and chews a mint-flavored toothpick! Me! I’m from Birmingham!”

“How did he get it off of there?” said Lucy. “How did he get it over here? It must weigh—”

“I don’t care how he did it!” snapped Mrs. Horne. “We’ve got to get rid of it. Think about it, Lucy: Nothing can touch Smash Dykes. He is an iconic figure. But I’m just a little businesswoman! How will this make me look? I’m the one who will be ruined if this is found out.” She paused and bravely choked back a sob. “What would they say in Birmingham?”