Tales of the turf

by Hugh S. Fullerton

I found the little rector very thoughtful and amazed at this new manner of man he had discovered, and when he buried Jaundice the next week he got right down among us and talked about handicaps and weights, and keeping on trying all the time. He talked just as if he had been in the paddock half his life, and the last thing he said was: “If I were a bookie, I’d lay odds that Jaundice cashes that last bet.”

TOUTIN’ MISTAH FOX

TOUTIN’ MISTAH FOX

Prosias Trimble’s protuberant lower lip drooped dejectedly, his eyes shifted in a scowl until the pupils were dots in the corners of expanses of white, his russet shoes, rapier-pointed and uncomfortably overcrowded with feet, dragged laggingly along the marble floor of the St. Charles Hotel Turkish baths. He went about his task of distributing towels with the air of one who has suffered great wrong.

In the private rooms and on cots ranged in the dormitory, white men snored, gurgled, choked, strangled. The sounds of sixty fat men snoring in sixty keys filled the rooms. Even the snore of the man in room six, which was a combination of shifting gears, a cut-out muffler, and a slipping clutch, passed unheard by “Pro.” Even the cheery whistle of his fellow rubber was unnoticed. The world was a place of darkness, and Pro’s mood was two shades darker than his skin, the color scheme of which was that of the ace of spades.

It was a dull night. The St. Charles Hotel Turkish baths were but half filled with patrons, although overcrowded with snores. The light patronage and the dejected mood of Prosias were due to the same cause: the winter meeting at the Fair Grounds race-track in New Orleans had ended two days before, the army of men and horses that had encamped in the Crescent City during the winter, and the swarm of plump patrons which nightly had crowded the St. Charles, had moved northward to Baltimore, and Prosias Trimble, top sergeant in that army, with the rank of tout, was left behind, to eke out a livelihood by working as rubber in the bath-house. The pearl-colored spats, the pointed russet shoes, the fawn waistcoat checkerboarded in green, the massive watch-chain draped in two graceful curves from buttonhole to pockets, the four-carat near-diamond which glistened with fading brilliancy in the purple necktie, were of the vanities vain: the “hosses” were gone, and Pro, compelled to return to the profession he had disowned when he became a race-follower, was not with them.

Two days before this night of gloom Prosias had strutted the streets of New Orleans—the envy of colored men, the admired of many colored women. His shining countenance, which reflected joy and happiness, had added color to the throngs in paddock and betting ring. In the evenings his presence had graced social affairs of the negro eight hundred, and Miss Luck had smiled consistently upon him. He had spent three evenings bidding farewell to the friends he had accumulated during the winter, had lightly promised half a dozen of his newly acquired lady friends to see them when the horses came back, and had created envy and dark hatred among the men by the casual carelessness with which he bade them polite farewells and expressed hopes of seeing them at Baltimore or Louisville or even at Saratoga during the meetings.

Until the morning of “Get Away Day” Miss Luck had smiled, and on that morning she beamed. Prosias and his bankroll had prospered, waxed fat, and flourished. The customary rumors had circulated on that morning—the old, old story of the “Get Away Killing” and the feed man’s bill—and straight from the oats-box the rumor had come to Pro, alighted upon him, and stung him. It was a hot tip—so hot that it singed and burned. The tip was to the effect that Centerdrink had been nominated to win—that he was to be shooed in at long odds, and that all the grievances of the bettors against the bookmakers were to be evened up in one great killing.

Pro had it from a jockey, who had it right out of the conference at which Centerdrink had been chosen to win. Pro had hurled his bankroll—the fortune accumulated during the entire winter—at the bookmakers, who, instead of breaking in panic, had handed him back smiles and bits of pasteboard with cabalistic charcoal characters on them. Pro had stood to win more than twelve thousand dollars—and he had stood dazedly while he watched Centerdrink finish eighth. When the truth dawned upon his benumbed brain he had reached one hand into the now vacant pocket, seeking car-fare, and, finding it not, had sought the bath-house and work—his dream of a summer jaunt around the race-courses wrecked.

Pro completed his task of distributing towels and stood thinking. Daylight was commencing to show through the little windows just under the ceiling of the bath-house, and daylight brought with it fresh, bitter thoughts. He knew that a few hundred miles to the northward the sun was rising on a stretch of level land, a circular ribbon of loam laid upon a field of green. Birds were singing in the trees, meadow larks were rising from the infield. Rows of fires were springing up along the front of the circular line of low, whitewashed stables. Slender, graceful horses, blanketed to the knees, were being led around and around in little circles, the odor of frying bacon was in the air, the rhythmic drumming of the feet of a speedy colt was sounding from the track. Far across the velvet infield, near where the spidery pillars of the stand stood black against the lightening sky, men with watches in their hands were on the rail, timing in fractions of seconds the movements of the flying colt. He pictured one vacant spot on the pickets of the fence—a spot which, but for the fickleness of Miss Luck and the hot tip on Centerdrink, he would have been occupying.