The Gold Brick

by Ann S. Stephens

With all this depth and volume of snow, crusted over as it had been by a sharp frost, it was almost impossible that the roads could be broken in a single day. Still, a few ox sleds had marked out the line of the turnpike, and some sleighs had followed in their track, with a wrangle of bells that told of the struggle made by the smoking horses which drew them. On the bank of the river, on the Chewstown side, the highway runs along the side of a hill, which terminates abruptly at the bridge, where the New Haven turnpike intersects it.

There is nothing very beautiful about the spot now, for the hemlocks, and young tamarisks are all cut down, the dog-wood and shad-blossoms cleared away, and the hill is almost left without a shade. But at the time of this snow-storm, the naked boughs and evergreens proved how thick and green the summer shadows must be, and if the "Rock Spring" sent its waters flashing through the snow, melting it softly away, you could, at least, imagine how cool and bright they were when ferns, mosses, and violets crept into the turf, and covered the rocks with the green and azure of a spring birth.

This road was not generally so much travelled as the one across the sand banks, but two or three loads of wood had passed that way, revealing the depths of the drifts without rendering them much more passable. Still a "solitary horseman" came out from the shelter of the hemlocks, and made his way very slowly toward the bridge. His horse, a stout animal, with any amount of mane and foretop streaming in the wind, came tramping heavily through the snow, emitting clouds of steam from his sides, while each labored breath bearded his under lip with icicles, and fringed his dilating nostrils with quivering frost-work.

The man who had braved that almost impassable road and cold day, was one of the most remarkable personages known in that portion of the country. His very eccentricities gave force and vitality to the general regard. Singular in person, singular in character, unlike all other men in almost every particular, he was, perhaps, somewhat for this very reason, looked up to and reverenced as the peculiar property of the neighborhood. Learned he certainly was; and neither before or after has another man been found who could, in all things, pretend to fill his place.

This man was the village doctor; no, the district doctor, rather, for his ride extended over thirty miles, and as a consulting physician over the whole State. With a huge bear-skin cap upon his head, and an ample brown overcoat, girded to his waist by a broad leather belt, and falling low on each side of his horse, he issued from behind the trees. Two crutches, worn smooth as glass, were crossed before him on the saddle bow. He held the bridle loosely in his hands and encouraged the horse with many a droll saying, as if the animal were human and could enjoy his quaint humor. At the "Rock Spring" there was a struggle between the doctor and his steed. For an unknown number of years the horse had invariably quenched his thirst in that particular place, and he was determined not to make this day an exception, though a deep round hole, scarcely larger than the doctor's cap, and a moist sinking of the snow across the road might have deceived a less sagacious animal into a belief that this old drinking place had been swallowed up by the storm.

There was no deceiving our doctor's brown horse in any thing, much less in a case of appetite like that. He was a dainty animal in the matter of drink, and water so pure and crystaline as that which lost its smothered music in the snow, was not to be found within twenty miles.

The doctor was in haste, or he never would have dreamed of contesting any thing with his faithful steed. Indeed, the case must have been one of life or death which could bring any man on the highway at a time like that. He began to protest and reason with the horse after his eccentric fashion, and finally went so far as to gather up the bridle and tighten the bit, a procedure which so astonished the horse that he backed sideways into a drift, viciously slanted his ears, and subsided into a state of masterly inactivity, the most difficult thing to conquer that we know of, either in statesmanship or horseflesh.

The doctor chuckled, laid the bridle down caressingly on the neck that had made a lamentable failure in striving to arch itself, and folding his hands in the loose sleeves of his overdress, waited. Obstinate animals and obstinate men are apt to feel as if fighting the air when no one opposes them. The horse began to realize this sensation. The snow-drift into which he had backed was cold and deep. The waters of the spring murmured a soft enticement. First, he pointed one ear and turned his head with sly, compunctious timidity, as if ashamed to enjoy his own triumph. Then he pointed the other ear, shook himself a little, tramped heavily toward the spring, and thrusting his head deep into the snow, began to drink.

The doctor indulged in a laugh, and when the horse withdrew his head, shaking a storm of drops back into the spring, he patted him softly, called him a good fellow for having his own way, and appeared so much like the obliged party that the animal, to his dying hour, was never quite certain of his own triumph.

After all, this struggle had taken but little time. The horse breasted his work with fresh vigor after it. He pushed through and trampled down the snow until he reached the bridge, stalked over it, toiled through the valley and up Falls Hill, never stopping till he reached the huge willow tree which stood on the crossroad that led to Bungy. This was a farming district, back of Castle Rock, where the Thrasher farm and Mrs. Allen's place lay.