True, and Other Stories

by George Parsons Lathrop

"Because I'm afraid. Something might happen."

Dennis shot a swift, indignant glance at her. "What'd happen, I'd like to know?"

"I didn't mean anything," said Adela. "I'm not going; that's what." She saw that she had been too abrupt, and she was determined not to disclose that she knew anything of the altercation.

But Dennis besought her in every way he could think of. "I won't talk to you so, like I did last time," he said, penitently. "I know I'm a rough kind o' fellow. I ain't got no temper—or mebbe I got too much. But I'm sorry for what I done, and sorry for mor'n what you know, Deely. I'll promise to be good if ye'll go."

And so, at last, she consented.

Old Reefe regarded the races as a matter of business, being in the habit, I regret to say, of selling considerable quantities of his untrustworthy herb-medicines on these occasions. He was peculiar and of a solitary turn, and had his own way of going to Newbern. He started three or four days in advance, on foot, and did more or less peddling in the sparsely settled country through which he passed. This arrangement was also quite satisfactory to Dennis. His sloop was made out of two large hollowed cypress logs—as is the custom in those latitudes, where the hard knocks that boats must endure on the shoals soon wear out any lighter craft—and the accommodations aboard were limited; there was really no room for "ole man Reefe."

To people leading so plain and secluded a life as that of the shore, you may imagine what a change and what an outlook of wild excitement this extensive trip to Newbern afforded. Adela was always interested in the boat; Dennis had given her lessons in sailing, and often let her take the helm. Once on board, her old delight returned; doubts and troubles vanished, and it was soon a gay party that sat beneath the sail, now briskly speeding midway up the five-mile-wide current, now tacking from side to side.

An informal, impromptu sort of fair clustered around the races, embracing booths and stalls for the sale of various trumpery, with perhaps a circus in a tent, or merely a nomadic little "show," consisting chiefly of over-colored pictures, that hung upon the canvas wall, flapping and trembling in the breeze as if frightened by their own mendacity. Then, as I have said, "Doctor" Reefe went about, lean and sombre, with grayish hair straggling round his dark cheeks, to hawk his "great Indian remedies," although it did not appear that there were any Indians to be remedied. Adela, who possessed a knack for making ornamental baskets and bead-work, likewise availed herself of the brief season to sell some of her pretty wares, in a modest and desultory way.

Lance, Jessie, and Colonel Floyd occupied themselves at first with looking at the trotters and watching the false starts, the true starts, the judges incessantly ringing a bell in the most confusing way, and the fine, steady rush of the horses around the track, with small sulkies and eager drivers apparently glued to their haunches. But after a time, when a number of heats had been run, there was an intermission, and Lance and Jessie began to stroll about in the crowd, examining the limited means of entertainment, while the colonel talked with some of his cronies among the horse-owners. Blacks and whites were slowly sauntering from point to point, chiefly in separate groups, and our friends kept on the edge of the white crowd. There was a fresh odor of bruised grass in the air, from the treading of many feet, and the beating of a drum sounded from the small tent where an outrageous effigy of the Great Giant of Tartary alternately swelled out threateningly and crumpled itself up ineffectually, as the gusts of wind came and went that fluttered the streamers above him.

Here and there a game of some sort was in progress, though without enlisting much energy from the participants, except in one instance. The exception was due to a newly introduced sport—that of "egg-jumping"—the point of which was that each contestant, in trying to make the longest jump, should carry an egg in either hand. The natural tendency to close the fingers at the moment of leaping was relied on to make jumpers crush the eggs; and most of them came to grief in that way, for a failure to bring either egg intact through the experiment ruined the competitors chance for that time. The enterprising individual who presided over this game had put up several cheap prizes, among which was a brilliant neckerchief for feminine adornment, and charged each person who entered the sum of five cents, the low rate being due to the fact that the eggs consumed were no longer marketable; and their condition was supposed to increase the dismay of the defeated.