Off in the background, with nothing intervening save the elms, little sailing yachts like white birds, rock and dip in the sapphire blue of the bay. Strong-built motor-boats scud across the horizon in so terrific a hurry one can hardly follow their wake for dust. (The editor will kindly permit me to say "dust.") We watch them, from our box, three women of us, with a field-glass which we use in turn for all the world like the three hoary witches who had only one eye between them.
I like this landscape better than our prairie. The trouble with the prairie is that you always seem to be in the middle of it. The garden of Time and Chance, it has no parts or passions unless, indeed, its spaces seem unfriendly. It has no mystery, no changeability, no complexity.... But all this is digressing from the races and from the beautifully dressed women who look like tall-stemmed flowers. I heard a man in the next box compute that the feathers worn in the enclosure had cost a hundred thousand dollars, but no matter what they cost they were worth it—willow plumes, fish-spines, aigettes, birds-of-paradise, ostrich mounts, ospreys, and other things I cannot name. Indeed, my own hat has two bright scarlet wings which cause me no small satisfaction, in spite of the fact that John says they are not so much wings as a challenge to combat. Moreover, he says when I am better civilized, I will know that feathers of any kind are an atavism and no fit dress for Christian people. It is trying to have a near relative with such views. The younger men of the enclosure affect Newmarket coats, or Burberry's, and cloth spats, also field-glasses swung across their shoulders. They express horse-language emphatically without a word. The older men who have attained to the dignity of the Bench or the Cabinet, run to silk hats and frock coats.
The enclosure is occupied by the favoured few who have boxes and who are designed by the Grand Stand as "the society bunch." I would like to write about this distinction, and sometime I will, but just now the three-year olds are cavorting down the great white-way, for the autumn cup which has $2500.00 tucked away in its inside. It is on Star Charter that I have my hard-earned western dollars—egg and butter money, mind you—and I must pay strict attention to this race. I think he'll win. The Lord never gave him those legs and that frictionless gait for nothing. I'm sure of that.
The horses do not mind their manners at the starting bar, but pick objections, prance, and kick each other with the most admirable precision. I have read that when the Otaheitans first saw a horse they called it "a man-carrying pig." It is not possible to improve on the definition.
But, after awhile, the horses make a clean break from the bar and are off in a spume of dust. Gallant-goers they are, and this is sure to be a tight race. Their necks are strained like teal on the wing, and almost you expect to hear a sharp shot and see one tumble. Indeed, they might be birds in autumn flight, in that they run in a wedge and seem to obey a collective consciousness.
The jockeys ride high on the horses' shoulders and they ride for a fall. The purple and blue jockey holds the lead and he's going some. The enclosure says he is.
But the blue and silver jockey is fighting him for every inch and he's gaining. The enclosure says he is.
The orange and black jockey is third. He's carrying my egg and butter money. He'll win though, for the jockey who stays second or third must get the advantage of the leading horses as a wind-shield. Presently he will slip the bunch; he's sure to. The enclosure says he is. John tells me to stop adjuring the jockey, that he will never hear me.
They've only a little way to go now—only a little way—and the orange and black is coming steadily to the front. Even John gets excited and keeps saying, "Good l'il ol' cayuse," and things like that, which are bad form down East. Steadily on—steadily past the blue and silver—steadily upon the haunches of the red and blue—now on his shoulder—now on his neck—and now a neck ahead. This was how the orange and black won, but you should have been there to see it.
And to think it all came from finding a two-eyed peacock feather in the paddock!