CHAPTER IV
FAIR-TIME had arrived. The Smead boys had worked every night and morning on the legs and body of that splendid horse. His coat was satin, and his plumes were silk when he went out of the stable. He returned dripping with sweat and foam.
I wonder what Daniel Webster Smead would have accomplished with those boys if they had had the care and training of his “hoss.” But they were only descended from Thankful Smead and Remember Baker and Winfield Scott, and what was that in comparison with the blood of Hambletonian X.?
I gave to Henry, to be wagered, a part of the money which my father had provided for the term's expenses. Henry promised that he would surely double it, and that is what happened. Montravers won, our pockets bulged with money, but the horse did not sell. A buyer from New York made an offer, which was refused. Mr. Smead informed us that the buyer had said that if Montravers showed that he could repeat his performance the price was not too high. Hope realized maketh the heart strong; and our imaginations, lighted by the gleam of gold, worked far into the night after full days of labor.
The next week the stallion was entered at Diddlebury. Henry and I were going over to get rich. Early in the morning of the race we skipped school and took a train to Diddlebury. Such riches have never come to me as we had in our minds that morning. We considered what we should do with the money. I secretly decided that I would buy a diamond ring for Florence Dunbar, his sister, and that, if there were any money left, I would give it to my mother.
Henry had his mental eye on a ranch in Texas, near his father's—not a very big one—he explained to me. As Henry knew the art of betting, I gave all my money to him, except a dollar and fifty-four cents.
We spent the morning at the stables by the track, and endured a good deal of abuse from the swipe boys, who looked down upon us from that upper level of horsedom. We knew it was justified, and made only a feeble response. We stood near with eyes and ears of envy while they jested with many a full round oath of their night's adventures. And I remember that one of them called to me:
“Here, sonny, keep away fr'm that mare's legs. She'll kick a hole in ye. If she don't I will. Come, now, take a walk. Run home to yer mammy.”
That was the mildest brand of scorn which they ladled out to us when we tried to show our familiarity with the “trottin'-hoss.” We found the stall of Montravers, but the trainer would not have us there despite our friendship for the owner. Driven by the contempt of our superiors from this part of the grounds, we haunted the rifle ranges and the gingerbread and lemonade stalls until the grand stand was thrown open. Henry left me for a while, and on his return said that he had wagered all our money on Montravers. I sat in a joyful trance until the bell rang.
The race began with our favorite among the five leaders of a large field. Suddenly the sky turned black. Montravers had broken and begun bucking, and acted as though he wanted to kick. He fell far behind, and when the red flag came down before him and shut him out of the race, I had to believe it, and could not. It was like having to climb a tree with a wolf coming, and no tree in sight.
Now, the truth is, Montravers might have won, but his driver sold the race, as we were to learn by and by—sold it for ten dollars and two bottles of whisky. He pulled and bedeviled the horse until the latter showed more temper than speed. The horse made every effort to get free and head the procession. He was on the square, that horse, but the ten-dollar man kept pulling. The horse was far more decent, more honest, more human than his driver; but the latter blamed the horse, and the New-Yorker got him for a thousand dollars less than he would have had to pay by any other method.
The ten-dollar man proved to be one of the few philanthropists in Griggsby. He became one of the great educators of the village. He stood by the gate that opened into the broad way of leisure. His cheap venality was like a dub in his hands, with which he smote the head of the fool and turned him back. If he had been a hundred-dollar man, the farms of the county would have gone to weeds.
Henry and I had only twenty-four cents between us. We met Mr. Smead coming from the stables. He was awfully cut up, in spite of that happy way he had of taking his trouble. We soon saw that something like an earthquake had happened to him.
“My education is complete,” said he, sadly. “I have got my degree; it is D.F. I have honestly earned it, and shall seek new worlds to conquer. The man who mentions hoss to me after this day shall perish by the sword of my wrath.”
He carried his little driving-whip in his hand.
“I have sold everything but this whip,” he added; “I keep that as a souvenir of my school days. Boys, are you ready to join me in a life of industry?”
“We are,” said both of us, in concert. “Then, in the language of D. Webster, follow me, strike down yon guard, gain the highway, an' start for a new destination. Boys, we will walk home; let us shake from our feet the dust of Diddlebury.”
“We have got to walk,” said Henry. “We lost every dollar we had on the race.”
“We are all of equal rank,” said Smead, with a smile. “I will share with you my distinction. There is enough of it for all of us. Evenly divided, it should satisfy the ambition of every damn fool in Vermont. Now let us proceed to the higher walks of life, the first of which shall be the walk to Griggsby.”
The sun was low when, beyond the last house in the village of Diddlebury, we came out on the turnpike with our faces set in the direction of Griggsby, nine miles away—and destinations far better and more remote.
Henry and I were weary, but the talk of Smead helped us along.
By and by he said: “Boys, as workers of iniquity we are failures; let us admit it. For the weak the competition is too severe. The ill-trained, half-hearted, third-rate, incompetent criminal is no good. He is respected neither by God, man, nor the devil. Let's be respectable. If we must have something for nothing, let's go to cuttin' throats, or boldly an' openly an' without shame go into the railroad business. Then we might have our mansions, our horses, an' our hounds. Whether we died in bed or on the gallows, we should be honored in song an' story, like Captain Kidd.”
He gaily sang a verse of the ballad, very familiar in the days of which I am telling:
“Jim Fisk was a man, wore his heart on his sleeve,
No matter what people might say,
And he did all his deeds—both the good and the
bad—
In the broad, open light of the day.
If a man was in trouble Jim helped him along
To drive the grim wolf from the door;
He often did right, and he often did wrong,
But he always remembered the poor.
“That's the thing!” he went on. “Cut the throats of the people, grab a million, an' throw back a thousand for charity.
“As it is, we are neither fish, flesh, nor fowl. Satan scorns our aid. I, for one, resent it. After all, a man of my gifts an' attainments deserves some recognition. Le's resign our commissions in his army an' go in for reform.
“Le's take up the idee o' givin' somethin' fer somethin', an' see how that 'll work. In my opinion, it 'll pay better. For one thing, we shall not have much competition in Griggsby. Of course, there are the churches, but they are busy with the sins of the Philistines an' Amalekites an' the distant heathen.
“Satan has made Griggsby his head-quarters as bein' more homelike than any other part of the universe. That is the place to begin operations. We'll be lonesome an' unpopular, but we'll raze hell—I mean, of course, that we'll cause it to move from Griggsby. There is nothing else for us to do. We are driven to it. Griggsby is untouched; it is virgin soil. As we have been coming along I have been counting on my fingers the young men of good families who under my eye have gone down to untimely an' dishonored graves in that little village. There are twenty-six that I can think of who have followed the leading lights to perdition. Of course, there are more, but that is enough. It's a ghastly harvest, boys. First, we will attack the leading lights; we will put them out.”
Henry and I were rather deeply impressed by this talk, so new, so different, so suited to our state of mind. It hit us straight between the eyes.
I was in a bad way, and dreadfully worried, without a cent for books or tuition or spending money, or the courage to appeal to my father.
“I've got some money in my pocket, boys,” he went on. “If I could only buy The Little Corporal [our weekly paper] it would be just the jaw bone with which to slay the Philistines. Wholesome publicity is the weapon we need. With it we could both demolish an' build up.”
Black clouds had covered the sky, and now we were walking in darkness, with a damp wind coming out of the west. We were some miles from the village of Griggsby when a drenching rain began to fall. We could see a light in a window close by the road, and we made for it.
A woman timidly opened the door as we rapped. Smead knew her.
“Sorry to trouble you, Mrs. Bradshaw,” said he. “Where is Bill?”
“He an' Sam Reynolds went over to Diddlebury Fair,” said she.
“Well, it is time the prize pumpkins were rollin' home,” said Smead; “but I'm 'fraid we have rolled about as far as we can tonight. A heavy rain has set in, an' we're nearly wet through.”
“We ain't much to offer you,” said the woman, “but if one o' you can sleep with the hired man there's a bed for the other two upstairs.”
“Do you think the hired man would sleep with me?” asked Smead, in playful astonishment.
“I guess so,” said the woman.
“Well, if you don't think he'd be offended, if he wouldn't git mad an' throw me out, I'd take it as a great compliment to sleep with the hired man.”
The woman put aside her sewing, rose wearily, lit a candle, and went upstairs to make the bed for Henry and me. She moved heavily in big shoes. Her face was pale and care-worn, her hands were knotted with toil. She was another slave.
“Her girl is away teaching school,” Smead explained to us. “One boy has worked his way to the grave—worn out as ye'd wear out a hoss. Another is working his way through college.”
We went to bed, but my sorrows kept me awake. Henry and I discussed them in whispers for half an hour. He said that he felt sure his sister Florence could lend us some money. Their bank account was in her name.
He fell asleep by and by, but I lay thinking of Florence and of my folly. I could hear Mrs. Bradshaw singing softly downstairs as she rocked in her sewing-chair. Near midnight I heard a carriage, and soon there was an entrance at the front door. Then I heard the woman speak in a low tone, and the angry answer of the man.
Had it come to this, he said, with an oath. A man couldn't do as he liked in his own house? He would see. Then he proceeded to break the furniture. Oh, the men were always at the bat in those days, and the women chasing the ball!
When we left in the morning, on a muddy road, Mr. Smead said to us:
“That man is another Simon Legree. The women are mostly slaves about here. If they could have their way, how long do you suppose the leading lights would be leading us? What would become of the trottin'-hoss an' the half-mile road to bankruptcy, an' perdition an' the red noses?
“Now, look at me. I went an' grabbed the earnings o' my wife an' children an' staked 'em on a hoss. Not that I've anything agin the hoss; hosses would be all right if it wa'n't for their associatin' with men. You put a five-thousan'-dollar hoss in the company of a ten-dollar man, an' the reputation o' the hoss is bound to suffer. If it's hard on a hoss, it's harder on a woman.
“Boys, I shall not buy the Corporal. I shall give every dollar in my pocket to Mrs. Smead an' throw in myself. It ain't much, but it may be more.”
That week he lettered a placard with great pains, and had it framed and hung in the “drawing-room,” and it said:
Proclamation of D. W. Smead:
In the name of God, amen. I hereby declare my wife to be a free woman and entitled to the rights of a human being in my home; the same right that I have to be wise or foolish. She shall have a part of the money that she earns by her own labor, and the right to rest when she is weary, and to enjoy a share of my abundant leisure. All persons are warned against harboring or trusting me any further at her expense.