The Black Stallion

fairs
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    George said, "We'll get through the winter all right. You don't need to worry none, Jimmy. Like I been tellin' you, I'm still the treasurer of this outfit."
    Jimmy sat back in the car seat, and although he was silent Tom knew he was still thinking about money. Finally Jimmy turned to him.
    "I don't know how you an' Bonfire did it, Tom," he said sincerely.
    "He's a champ…" Tom started to say, then quickly added, "I mean, he just didn't have any competition at the fairs."
    "But, still I don't see how you did it," Jimmy insisted. "I never made so much money as you two did in any one season as long as I been racin'."
    "Purses were bigger," George said, coming to Tom's assistance.
    Jimmy was silent after that. But Tom shifted uneasily in his seat. He and George were just getting into this thing deeper and deeper by not telling Jimmy about Roosevelt Raceway. George wanted to wait until Jimmy was fully recovered. Yet how were they going to continue keeping this from Jimmy? How? When newspapers and national magazines, as well as all racing publications, still carried stories about the "phenomenally fast" blood bay colt owned by
    Jimmy Creech of Coronet, Pennsylvania. When not a single day passed that many visitors, including photographers and sportswriters, did not come to see Bonfire!
    They couldn't leave their colt alone for a moment. Even today they had hired a man to look after Bonfire while they came for Jimmy.
    George had said Jimmy wouldn't visit the stables for a number of weeks, and they'd make certain he never saw a newspaper or a magazine that carried a story or an article on Bonfire's winning the Two-Year-Old Championship Race at Roosevelt Raceway.
    Could they keep news of that importance from Jimmy Creech? Tom wondered and doubted it, now that Jimmy was out of the hospital. And he didn't want to think what would happen when Jimmy found out.
    "We got enough left, George, to get us goin' next season?" Jimmy asked.
    George nodded. "Leave that all to me," he said.
    Enough money left
? Tom fidgeted, even though Jimmy was silent again. To Jimmy's account in the bank they had deposited three thousand dollars. All that money even after they had paid every bill and bought all new racing equipment for the coming season!
    And that wasn't all.
    Tom's hand went to the letter from Uncle Wilmer that he carried in his pocket. The letter which read in part: "All kinds of folks have been a-coming here to the farm to see the Queen, just because she's the dam of Bonfire. They come from all over—Amityville, Earlville, Boyertown, Reading and some from Philadelphia and New York. I figured I could keep 'em away so I could get some work done around here by putting up a sign on the road telling everybody it costs a dollar to see the mare. But it didn't keep 'em away like I thought it would. Nope, more came even. And now I got more money than I can get in the corner cupboard bowl. You ask Jimmy what I should do about all this money. I figure most of it belongs to him—but I oughta get maybe ten percent of it for thinkin' this idea up."
    In addition to all this, there was the wealthy man from New York City, who had arrived at Coronet one day the previous week, offering a hundred thousand dollars for the blood bay colt. When Tom and George had flatly refused this fabulous price for Bonfire, the story made the headlines of every newspaper sports section in the country.
    Suddenly Jimmy turned to Tom, and the boy found it difficult to take his eyes from the window to look at him.
    "You know what I'm goin' to do next season, Tom?"
    "No, Jimmy. What?"
    Jimmy slapped Tom's knee again. "I'm not one to be dumb enough to break up a winnin' combination like you ah' Bonfire. The doc said I could go to the fairs, all right, but thought it best for me if I let you do all the race drivin'. I told him all about you an' the colt, Tom. So I'm goin' to do jus' that. I'm goin' to teach you all I can an' just watch you and Bonfire go. That's goin' to be just as good as anything I could ever ask for. And that's the way it's goin' to be."
    "You mean it, Jimmy?" Tom asked excitedly. "You're going to let me drive him all the time?"
    "Why, sure I mean it. I don't say anything unless I mean it."
    "Tom and the colt are a winnin' combination, all right," George said.
    Jimmy turned to him, noddingly wisely. "I knew that all along," he said. He was silent for a few minutes, then spoke again. "What'd Miss Elsie do with that black filly of hers?"
    George