TRUE’S FIRST HARD WORK, AND HOW HE ACCOMPLISHED IT.
Upon a hill at Randolph Centre perched a little store where the farmers gathered in cold weather to warm themselves with Medford rum, a common enough drink in those days, to express lavish opinions as to political affairs of the young nation, so lately separated from her Mother Country, or to discuss more intimate local business.
Master Morgan drank little, being more inclined to quiet study than sociability, but his way led past the store and he often stopped to hear the news. There were no newspapers in those days, and all news came by letter or word-of-mouth of the stage-drivers.
Whilst waiting outside for his owner True made pleasant acquaintances among the horses who also stood awaiting their riders.
A grey mare, very old, very wise and very strong in her convictions, whom he often met, told him many mane-raising stories of Indian days—so recently passed through—and the more his wide-set ears pointed and the more his dark prominent eyes grew eager the better the old pioneer liked it.
One of her strange tales was how she discovered her master, Experience Davis, after he returned from his two years’ captivity with the Indians.
One day, she told True, as she stood quietly near Davis’ hut, nibbling lazily among the stumps and stones of the new-cleared field to get the last blades of grass and weeds, she heard a frightful sound approaching.
She thrilled with horror!
Davis, hoeing, hard by, also heard and dashed frantically into his hut, closing the door and barring it securely—right well did everyone of the time know what those dreadful war-whoops and blood-curdling yells foreboded!
Old Grey threw back her head and sniffed for a better scent with red, comprehending nostrils. Then, as a band of painted, half-naked savages, brandishing their tomahawks, rushed from the forest, she snorted and fled—her sparse tail high in the air, her heart stricken with fear.
On an eminence afar, she stopped and saw the wretches burst open the hut-door and drag her struggling master out. Binding him tightly, and securing everything that might be of use, they set fire to the hut and disappeared into the forest with war-whoops, taking Davis with them.
Old Grey waited sadly on the river-bank until hunger and loneliness induced her to return. Alas, the ruin that met her eyes!
A neighbor who had escaped the massacre of that day found her, wandering about in despair, and, thinking his friend Experience must have been burned in his hut or scalped, took the old mare to share such life as the pioneers of that day had to endure. When he went to live in Hanover, Old Grey went along, too.
One fine sunny day two years later, as she stood hitched in the old Meeting House yard, she felt a thrill, her heart began suddenly to beat faster, she looked around, disturbed in spirit for some strange, unknown reason.
At last she saw a man crossing the yard, and a moment later recognized her old friend Experience Davis!
Fearing he would pass without seeing her, she whinneyed, once-and-a-half, as had been her wont.
Davis stopped, glanced about, mystified, and was going on when she repeated her greeting, anxiously. At that he looked at her, sharply and curiously. Involuntarily he answered, with his old familiar whistle.
At sound of this Old Grey was so overcome with joy that she snapped her hitch-rein with a quick jerk, and trotted right up to him!
He was so pale and thin from long captivity that she would hardly have known him by sight, alone; it was his scent that convinced her infallible nostrils that he was really her once ruddy and strong master.
Davis took her back to the old place where he had just rebuilt the hut and stable and there they had lived happily together ever since.
On the Highway from Boston to Canada, stood Benedict’s Tavern, and here True often met distinguished horses on their way to or from the race course on The Plains of Abraham, in Quebec, where men sent their horses from great distances to test their speed against other horses. There were then, in the United States of America, no race-courses.
It was at this stage-house, no doubt, that in True was first born that racing spirit, of which nothing came for a long time.
In the late winter of his first year at Randolph, Master Morgan fell ill with lung-trouble; he had to give up his teaching and singing and, finding he could not afford to keep a horse, hired True out to one Robert Evans, a farmer and hunter, solid as granite, and kindly, to clear fifteen acres of heavy-timbered land.
For this task Evans agreed to pay Morgan fifteen dollars and to feed the horse.
Evans, big chinned and grey eyed, was a lean and sinewy frontiersman, poor and hard-working, with a large family, and True knew, intuitively, that his days of pleasant jaunting about the country under the saddle were over. However, with that indomitable courage, which characterizes his descendants to this day, he set about the difficult task and by the first of June it was finished, without help from any other horse.[6]
He never regretted this work for it developed his chest and leg muscles early in life, muscles, the like of which had not been known before in a horse of his size.
The setting of many of True’s most interesting experiences and exciting adventures at this period of his life, was Chase’s Mill. This busy spot was situated on the wooded bank of the White River, as pretty a bit of Vermont as one could find in a day’s journey. The river sparkled and laughed between green banks and leaped merrily over the mill-wheel; spruce and firs thrust thirsty feet deep down in the water and reared tall heads high into the upper air to catch the sun’s rays; perfume of wild flowers loaded the breeze; birds sang all day, and white stemmed birches guarded the nearby forest like soldiers standing in a row, straight and firm.
Miller Chase plied an honest trade in Medford rum while the farmers waited for the wobbly stones to grind their corn or the saws to saw their logs. Horses and oxen grazed at hand, taking the opportunity to enjoy the delicious grass growing so abundantly in the rich, fertile valley.
One day True chanced to remark upon this grass to his friend Old Grey.
“Know you not,” she asked, astonished at his youthful ignorance, “how it came to be broadcast here?”
“Not I!” whinneyed True. Suffice it that he was enjoying its satisfying plentifulness to the fullest after his hard day in the plow.
And she told him.
After the massacre, in which her master, Experience Davis, had been captured, in plundering Zadock Steele’s hut, before burning it, an Indian found a sack of valuable grass-seed. He put it over his shoulder and started off down the valley.
After a while he noticed, vaguely, that his load, unlike the usual manner of loads, became lighter the farther he travelled, but he stupidly did not think to glance over his shoulder at his burden.
When he reached Dog River there was not a grass-seed left in the sack!
Through a tiny hole in the bag he had, unintentionally, sown this wonderful seed all the way from Randolph, and for years it grew up, unmowed, uneaten, and almost man-high, to make the White River Valley famous, and supply grass and hay for farmers and horses.