Elbow-Room: A Novel Without a Plot

by Charles Heber Clark

CHAPTER IV.

THE FACTS IN REFERENCE TO MR. BUTTERWICK'S HORSE.

Mr. Butterwick is not a good judge of horses, but a brief while ago he thought he would like to own a good horse, and so he went to a sale at a farm over in Tulpehocken township, and for some reason that has not yet been revealed he bid upon the forlornest wreck of a horse that ever retained vitality. It was knocked down to him before he had a chance to think, and he led it home with something like a feeling of dismay. The purchase in a day or two got to be the joke of the whole village, and people poked fun at Butterwick in the most merciless manner. But he was inclined to take a philosophical view of the matter, and to present it in rather a novel and interesting light. When I spoke to him of the unkind things that were said about the horse, he said,

"Oh, I know that they say he has the heaves; but one of the things I bought him for was because he breathes so loud. That is a sign that he has a plenty of wind. You take any ordinary horse, and you can't hear him draw a breath; his lungs are frail and he daren't inflate 'em. But my horse fills his up and blows 'em out again vigorously, so people can hear for themselves how he enjoys the fresh air. Now, I'll let you into a secret, only mind you don't go to whispering it about: When you want to buy a horse, go and stand off a quarter of a mile and see if you can hear him kinder sighing. If you can, why go for that horse; he's worth his weight in gold. That's strictly between you and me, now mind!

"And you know that old idiot, Potts, was trying to joke me because the horse was sprung in the knees, as if that was not the very thing that made me resolve to have that horse if I ran him up to five hundred dollars! You are a young man with no experience in the world, and I'll tell you why I like such legs: They give the horse more leverage. Do you see? When a horse's leg is straight, the more he bears on it, the more likely he is to fracture the bone. But you curve that leg a little to the front, and the upper bone bears obliquely on the lower bone, the pressure is distributed and the horse has plenty of purchase. It is the well-known principle of the arch, you know. If it's good in building a house, why isn't it good in getting up a horse? Sprung in the knees! Why, good gracious, man! a horse that is not sprung is not any horse at all; he is only fit for soap-fat and glue. Now, that's as true as my name's Butterwick.

"And as for his tail, that they talk so much about! Who'n the thunder wanted a long tail on the horse? I knew well enough it was short and had only six or seven hairs on it. But the Romans and Egyptians made their horses bob-tailed, and why? Maybe you ain't up in ancient history? Why, those old Romans knew that a horse with a fifteen-inch tail had more meat on him than a horse with a four-inch tail, and consequently required more nourishment. They knew that more muscular force is expended in brandishing a long tail than a short one, and muscular force is made by food, so they chopped off their horses' tails to make 'em eat less. They had level heads in those times. They were up in scientific knowledge. But what do these idiots around this town know about such things? Let 'em laugh. I can stand a tail that saves me a couple of bushels of oats a year. I'll bet you anything that there's millions and millions of dollars wasted—just thrown away—in this country every year furnishing nutriment to tails that are of no earthly use to the horses after they're nourished. You can depend on that. I've examined the government statistics, and they're enough to make a man cry to see how wasteful the American people are.

"And when you talk about his ribs showing so plainly through his sides, you prove that you have a very singular want of taste. Which is handsomer, a flat wall or a wall with a surface varied with columns and pilasters? Well, then, when you take a horse, no man who loves art wants to see him smooth and even from stem to stern. What you want is a varied surface—a little bit of hill and a little bit of valley; and you get it in a horse like mine. Most horses are monotonous. They tire on you. But swell out the ribs, and there you have a horse that always pleases the eye and appeals to the finer sensibilities of the mind. Besides, you are always perfectly certain that he has his full number of ribs, and that the man you buy him of is not keeping back a single, solitary bone. Your horse is all there, and you go to bed at night comfortable because you know it. That's the way I look at it; and without caring to have it mentioned around, I don't mind telling you that I know a man who came all the way from Georgia to buy my horse simply because he heard that his ribs stuck out. I got my bid in ahead of him, and he went home the worst disgusted man you ever saw.

"And about his having glanders and botts and blind staggers and a raw shoulder, I can tell you that those things never attack any but a thoroughbred horse; and for my part, I made up my mind years ago, when I was a child, that if any man ever offered me a horse that hadn't blind staggers I wouldn't take him as a gift. Now, that's as true as you're alive. Professor Owen says that so far from regarding glanders as a disease he considers it the crowning glory of a good horse, and he wants the English government to pass a law inoculating every horse on the island with it. You write to him and ask him if that ain't so."

And so Butterwick put his phenomenal horse in his stable, hired an Irishman to take care of it, and possessed his soul in peace. However, before he fairly had a chance to enjoy his purchase, he was summoned to St. Louis to look after some business matters, and he was detained there for about six weeks. During his absence Mrs. Butterwick assumed the responsibility for the management of the horse; and as she knew as much about taking care of horses as she did about conducting the processes of the sidereal system, the result was that Mr. Butterwick's horse was the unconscious parent of infinite disaster. When Butterwick returned and had kissed his wife and talked over his journey, the following conversation ensued. Mrs. Butterwick said,

"You know our horse, dearest?"

"Yes, sweet; how is he getting along?"

"Not so very well; he has cost a great deal of money since you've been away."

"Indeed?"

"Yes; besides his regular feed and Patrick's wages as hostler, I have on hand unpaid bills to the amount of two thousand dollars on his account."

"Two thousand! Why, Emma, you amaze me! What on earth does it mean?"

"I'll tell you the whole story, love. Just after you left he took a severe cold, and he coughed incessantly. You could hear him cough for miles. All the neighbors complained of it, and Mr. Potts, next door, was so mad that he shot at the horse four times. Patrick said it was whooping-cough."

"Whooping-cough, darling! Impossible! A horse never has whooping-cough."

"Well, Patrick said so. And as I always give paregoric to the children when they cough, I concluded that it would be good for the horse, so I bought a bucketful and gave it to him with sugar."

"A bucketful of paregoric, my love! It was enough to kill him."

"Patrick said that was a regular dose for a horse of sedentary habits; and it didn't kill him: it put him to sleep. You will be surprised, dear, to learn that the horse slept straight ahead for four weeks. Never woke up once. I was frightened about it, but Patrick told me that it was a sign of a good horse. He said that Dexter often slept six months on a stretch, and that once they took Goldsmith Maid to a race while she was sound asleep and she trotted a mile in 2:15, I think he said, without getting awake."

"Patrick said that, did he?"

"Yes; that was at the end of the second week. But as the horse didn't rouse up, Patrick said it couldn't be the paregoric that kept him asleep so long; and he came to me and asked me not to mention it, but he had suspicions that Mr. Fogg had mesmerized him."

"I never heard of a horse being mesmerized, dearest."

"Neither did I, but Patrick said it was a common thing with the better class of horses. And when he kept on sleeping, dear, I got frightened, and Patrick consulted the horse-doctor, who came over with a galvanic battery, which he said would wake the horse. They fixed the wires to his leg and turned on the current. It did rouse him. He got up and kicked fourteen boards out of the side of the stable and then jumped the fence into Mr. Potts' yard, where he trod on a litter of young pigs, kicked two cows to death and bit the tops off of eight apple trees. Patrick said he tried to swallow Mrs. Potts' baby, but I didn't see him do that. Patrick may have exaggerated. I don't know. It seems hardly likely, does it, that the horse would actually try to eat a child?"

"The man that sold him to me didn't mention that he was fond of babies."

"But he got over the attack. The only effect was that the paregoric or the electricity, or something, turned his hair all the wrong way, and he looks the queerest you ever saw. Oh yes; it did seem to affect his appetite, too. He appeared to be always hungry. He ate up the hay-rack and two sets of harness. And one night he broke out and nibbled off all the door-knobs on the back of the house."

"Door-knobs, Emma? Has he shown a fondness for door-knobs?"

"Yes; and he ate Louisa's hymn-book, too. She left it lying on the table on the porch. Patrick said he knew a man in Ireland whose horse would starve to death unless they fed him on Bibles. If he couldn't get Bibles, he'd take Testaments; but unless he got Scriptures of some kind, he was utterly intractable."

"I would like to have had a look at that horse, sweet."

"So we got the horse-doctor again, and he said that what the poor animal wanted was a hypodermic injection of morphia to calm his nerves. He told Patrick to get a machine for placing the morphia under the horse's skin. But Patrick said that he could do it without the machine. So one day he got the morphia, and began to bore a hole in the horse with a gimlet."

"A gimlet, Emma?"

"An ordinary gimlet. But it seemed unpleasant to the horse, and so he kicked Patrick through the partition, breaking three of his ribs. Then I got the doctor to perform the operation properly, and the horse after that appeared right well, excepting that Patrick said that he had suddenly acquired an extraordinary propensity for standing on his head."

"He is the first horse that ever wanted to do that, love."

"Patrick said not. He told me about a man he worked for in Oshkosh who had a team of mules which always stood on their heads when they were not at work. He said all the mules in Oshkosh did. So Patrick tied a heavy stone to our horse's tail to Balance him and keep him straight. And this worked to a charm until I took the horse to church one Sunday, when, while a crowd stood round him looking at him, he swung his tail around and brained six boys with the stone."

"Brained them, love?"

"Well, I didn't see them myself, but Patrick told me, when I came out of church, that they were as good as dead. And he said he remembered that that Oshkosh man used to coax his mules to stand on their legs by letting them hear music. It soothed them, he said. And so Patrick got a friend to come around and sit in the stall and calm our horse by playing on the accordion."

"Did it make him calmer?"

"It seemed to at first; but one day Patrick undertook to bleed him for the blind staggers, and he must have cut the horse in the wrong place, for the poor brute fell over on the accordion person and died, nearly killing the musician."

"The horse is dead, then? Where is the bill?"

"I'll read it to you:

THE BILL.

Horse-doctor's fees $125 50
Paregoric for cough 80 00
Galvanic battery 10 00
Repairing stable 12 25
Potts' cow, pigs, apple trees and baby 251 00
Damage to door-knobs, etc. 175 00
Louisa's hymn-book 25
Gimlet and injections 15 00
Repairing Patrick's ribs 145 00
Music on accordion 21 00
Damages to player 184 00
Burying six boys 995 00
————-
$2,014 00

"That is all, love, is it?"

"Yes."

Then Mr. Butterwick folded the bill up and went out into the back yard to think. Subsequently, he told me that he had concluded to repudiate the unpaid portions of the bill, and then to try to purchase a better horse. He said he had heard that Mr. Keyser, a farmer over in Lower Merion, had a horse that he wanted to sell, and he asked me to go over there with him to see about it. I agreed to do so.

When we reached the place, Mr. Keyser asked us into the parlor, and while we were sitting there we heard Mrs. Keyser in the dining-room, adjoining, busy preparing supper. Keyser would not sell his horse, but he was quite sociable, and after some conversation, he said,

"Gentlemen, in 1847 I owned a hoss that never seen his equal in this State. And that hoss once did the most extr'ordinary thing that was ever done by an animal. One day I had him out, down yer by the creek—"

Here Mrs. Keyser opened the door and exclaimed, shrilly,

"Keyser, if you want any supper, you'd better get me some kin'lin-wood pretty quick."

Then Keyser turned to us and said, "Excuse me for a few moments, gentlemen, if you please."

A moment later we heard him splitting wood in the cellar beneath, and indulging in some very hard language with his soft pedal down, Mrs. Keyser being the object of his objurgations. After a while he came into the parlor again, took his seat, wiped the moisture from his brow, put his handkerchief in his hat, his hat on the floor, and resumed:

"As I was sayin', gentlemen, one day I had that hoss down yer by the creek; it was in '47 or '48, I most forget which. But, howsomedever, I took him down yer by the creek, and I was jest about to—"

Mrs. Keyser (opening the door suddenly). "You, Keyser! there's not a drop of water in the kitchen, and unless some's drawed there'll be no supper in this house this night, now mind me!"

Keyser (with a look of pain upon his face). "Well, well! this is too bad! too bad! Gentlemen, just wait half a minute. I'll be right back. The old woman's rarin' 'round, and she won't wait."

Then we heard Keyser at work at the well-bucket; and looking out the back window, we saw him bringing in a pail of water. On his way he encountered a dog, and in order to give his pent-up feelings adequate expression, he kicked the animal clear over the fence. Presently he came into the parlor, mopped his forehead, and began again.

Keyser. "As I was sayin', that hoss was perfeckly astonishin'. On the day of which I was speakin'. I was ridin' him down yer by the creek, clost by the corn-field, and I was jest about to wade him in, when, all of a suddent-like, he—"

Mrs. Keyser (at the door, and with her voice pitched at a high key). "ARE you goin' to fetch that ham from the smoke-house, or ARE you goin' to set there jabberin' and go without your supper? If that ham isn't here in short order, I'll know the reason why. You hear me?"

Keyser (his face red and his manner excited). "Gra-SHUS! If this isn't—Well, well! this just lays over all the—Pshaw! Mr. Butterwick, if you'll hold on for a second, I'll be with you agin. I'll be right back."

Then we heard Keyser slam open the smokehouse door, and presently he emerged with a ham, which he carried in one hand, while with the other he made a fist, which he shook threateningly at the kitchen door, as if to menace Mrs. Keyser, who couldn't see him.

Again he entered the parlor, smelling of smoke and ham, and, crossing his legs, he continued.

Keyser "Excuse these little interruptions; the old woman's kinder sing'ler, and you've got to humor her to live in peace with her. Well, sir, as I said, I rode that extr'ordinary hoss down yer by the creek on that day to which I am referring and after passin' the cornfield I was goin' to wade him into the creek; just then, all of a, suddent, what should that hoss do but—"

Mrs. Keyser (at the door again). "Keyser, you lazy vagabone! Why don't you 'tend to milkin' them cows? Not one mossel of supper do you put in your mouth this night unless you do the milkin' right off. You sha'n't touch a crust, or my name's not Emeline Keyser!"

Then Keyser leaped to his feet in a perfect frenzy of rage and hurled the chair at Mrs. Keyser; whereupon she seized the poker and came toward him with savage earnestness. Then we adjourned to the front yard suddenly; and as Butterwick and I got into the carriage to go home, Keyser, with a humble expression in his eyes, said:

"Gentlemen, I'll tell you that hoss story another time, when the old woman's calmer. Good-day."

I am going to ask him to write it out. I am anxious to know what that horse did down at the creek.

Butterwick subsequently bought another horse from a friend of his in the city, but the animal developed eccentricities of such a remarkable character that he became unpopular. Butterwick, in explaining the subject to me, said,

"I was surprised to find, when I drove him out for the first time, that he had an irresistible propensity to back. He seemed to be impressed with a conviction that nature had put his hind legs in front, and that he could see with his tail; and whenever I attempted to start him, he always proceeded backward until I whipped him savagely, and then he would go in a proper manner, but suddenly, and with the air of a horse who had a conviction that there was a lunatic in the carriage who didn't know what he was about. One day, while we were coming down the street, this theory became so strong that he suddenly stopped and backed the carriage through the plate-glass window of Mackey's drug-store. After that I always hitched him up with his head toward the carriage, and then he seemed to feel better contented, only sometimes he became too sociable, and used to put his head over the dasher and try to chew my legs or to eat the lap-cover.

"Besides, the peculiar arrangement of the animal excited unpleasant remark when I drove out; and when I wanted to stop and would hitch him by the tail to a post, he had a very disagreeable way of reaching out with his hind legs and sweeping the sidewalk whenever he saw anybody that he felt as if he would like to kick.

"He was not much of a saddle-horse; not that he would attempt to throw his rider, but whenever a saddle was put on him it made his back itch, and he would always insist upon rubbing it against the first tree or fence or corner of a house that he came to; and if he could bark the rider's leg, he seemed to be better contented. The last time I rode him was upon the day of Mr. Johnson's wedding. I had on my best suit, and on the way to the festival there was a creek to be forded. When the horse got into the middle of it, he took a drink, and then looked around at the scenery. Then he took another drink, and gazed again at the prospect. Then he suddenly felt tired and lay down in the water. By the time he was sufficiently rested I was ready to go home.

[Illustration: MR. BUTTERWICK'S HORSE LIES DOWN]

"The next day he was taken sick. Patrick said it was the epizooty, and he mixed him up some turpentine in a bucket of warm feed. That night the horse had spasms, and kicked four of the best boards out of the side of the stable. Jones said that horse hadn't the epizooty, but the botts, and that the turpentine ought to have been rubbed on the outside of him instead of going into his stomach. So we rubbed him with turpentine, and next morning he hadn't a hair on his body.

"Colonel Coffin told me that if I wanted to know what really ailed that horse he would tell me. It was glanders, and if he wasn't bled he would die. So the colonel bled him for me. We took away a tubful, and the horse thinned down so that his ribs made him look as if he had swallowed a flour-barrel.

"Then I sent for the horse-doctor, and he said there was nothing the matter with the horse but heaves, and he left some medicine 'to patch up his wind.' The result was that the horse coughed for two days as if he had gone into galloping consumption, and between two of the coughs he kicked the hired man through the partition and bit our black-and-tan terrier in half.

"I thought perhaps a little exercise might improve his health, so I drove him out one day, and he proceeded in such a peculiar manner that I was afraid he might suddenly come apart and fall to pieces. When we reached the top of White House hill, which is very steep by the side of the road, he stopped, gave a sort of shudder, coughed a couple of times, kicked a fly off his side with his hind leg, and then lay down and calmly rolled over the bank. I got out of the carriage before he fell, and I watched him pitch clear down to the valley beneath, with the vehicle dragging after him. When we got to him he was dead, and the man at the farm-house close by said he had the blind staggers.

"I sold him for eight dollars to a man who wanted to make him up into knife-handles and suspender-buttons; and since then we have walked. I hardly think I shall buy another horse. My luck doesn't seem good enough when I make ventures of that kind."