representative sport of the tin-canner and the sun-hunter, just as the representative sport of the British working man is drinking Burton’s and just as the representative sport of certain African tribes is wearing rings in their noses.
Just as an Englishman is unable to see anything in baseball, and just as most Americans yawn heartily at the mere mention of cricket, so is the ordinary passer-by unable to detect the charm in horseshoe pitching. He sees a long row of men tossing horseshoes at iron stakes and another long row of men digging the horseshoes out of the dirt and tossing them back at other stakes. But the sun-hunters get out immediately after breakfast and pitch all day with feverish intensity and passionate concentration, only quitting when the sun goes down behind the palms in a golden haze.
Some of the horseshoe experts carry their private horseshoes with them in leather bags, and it is not unusual for an aspiring horseshoe tosser to seek out the experts and pay handsomely for copies of the instruments with which they won to fame and high position. Thus it may be seen how among horseshoe tossers, as well as among golfers, ballplayers and others who should know better, the delusion persists that a workman may attain perfection through his tools instead of through himself.
The more skilful tossers carry with them all the appliances of their avocation—tape measures with which to measure the distance of the shoes from the stake; calipers to measure their distance from one another; chalk with which to keep score; collapsible rakes to smooth out the tumbled dirt around the stakes. The delicate movements of a celebrated tosser as he hitches up his galluses, spits on his right hand and tests his muscles by sinking to a semi-squatting position and rising upright again, are watched with the keenest interest by large crowds of sun-hunters. When a horseshoe makes a particularly noteworthy flight, a fusillade of applausive spitting splashes on the sun-baked ground.
There is, of course, an International Horseshoe Club. It is too important an organization to be demeaned with a merely local name, such as the Horseshoe Club of America. Then there are local chapters that indulge in tournaments at which feeling runs high. At West Palm Beach, when I was there, a new pitch was being prepared for the big impending tournament with Lake Worth. An international polo match may get more publicity, but there’s more quiet bitterness over a horseshoe tournament—much more. Especially in Florida.
Those who weary of dominoes, checkers, chess and horseshoe pitching are at liberty to cut a bamboo pole and sit in the sun beside one of the countless rivers, streams and inlets that dent the Florida coast. These waters are full of trout, bass, red snapper, yellowtails, pompano, grunts—silvery and delicious fish so-called because of their noisy and peevish growls and grunts of protest when removed from the water—and many other fish whose eating and fighting qualities would have caused Izaak Walton to swoon with delight.
It’s hard to believe that the North, every winter, is full of people who hate northern winters, and of folk who don’t know what to do with themselves. If they don’t know enough to become sun-hunters, they deserve to suffer.
BOOK THREE
TROPICAL GROWTH