The Secret of Toni

by Molly Elliot Seawell

Whether this were an offer or not, Madame Marcel could not determine. She might have fancied the dashing, fierce-looking sergeant, with his five medals on his breast, but that proposition to thrash Toni robbed the proposal of all its charm. And besides that, Madame Marcel, although she praised Denise, felt a secret jealousy of the little girl’s perfections. Toni, as a rule, was less afraid of soldiers than any other people, especially if they were cavalrymen, for Toni dearly loved horses and was not the least cowardly about them, and felt a secret bond of sympathy between himself and all who had to do with the cult of the horse.

Bienville had been a place of considerable military consequence, in the old, far-off days, and still retained evidences of having had ten thousand troops quartered there in long rows of tumble-down barrack buildings. But not much remained of this former consequence except the old barracks, a hideous war monument in the public square, and a very grim old woman, the widow of a soldier in the Napoleonic Wars. Toni regarded the monument and old Marie, in her mob cap and spectacles, sitting proud and stern on a bench in the public square, as belonging to each other. All the soldiers, and even the officers, saluted old Marie as they passed—tributes which were received with proud composure.

Everything else in the town of Bienville was gay and cheerful, except the monument and old Marie. It was now garrisoned by one cavalry regiment only, and was a depot for horses and cavalry recruits. There was a big riding-school with a tan-bark floor, where the new recruits were broken in and taught to ride. It was Toni’s delight to crawl in by the window or the small side door, and, hiding under a pile of horse furniture in a corner, watch the horses gallop around, their hoofs beating softly on the tan-bark, their eyes bright and glistening, their crests up, and their coats shining like satin with much currying at the hands of brawny troopers.

Toni did not know what it was to be afraid of a horse, and loved nothing better than to hang about the barracks stables and riding-school and take cheerfully the cuffs and kicks he got from the soldiers for being in the way. Especially was this true on Sundays when he did not have Paul Verney’s company, for Paul went to church obediently, while Toni, after submitting to be washed and dressed clean, was almost certain to run away, disregarding his mother’s frantic cries after him, and spend the whole morning in the delightful precincts of the barracks stables. Jacques liked it, too, and told Toni it reminded him of those glorious old days when his trousers and shako were new and he carried his musket jauntily, in the long red line that set out for Russia. So Toni haunted the barracks stables to please Jacques as well as himself.

One glorious and never-to-be-forgotten day, a good-natured trooper had hoisted Toni on the back of a steady-going old charger, who knew as much about teaching recruits to ride as any soldier in the regiment. The old charger, being offended at finding the small, wriggling object upon his back, took it into his head, for the first time since his colthood, to plunge and kick violently, and ended by bolting out of the barracks yard and making straight across the edge of the town, through the meadow to the old stone bridge that spanned the river. The trooper, who had meant to oblige Toni, suddenly realized that the boy was the only son of his mother and she a widow. Jumping on another horse, he galloped after Toni, down the stony street, into the green lane and across the bridge.

The old charger, who was eighteen years old, gave out at the end of the bridge and came down to a sober trot. He had not, with all his efforts, got rid of the small, wriggling object on his back. As for Toni, he had the time of his life. It was the one full draft of riotous joy that he had tasted. It was better even than licking the candy kettle on Saturday mornings. The wild flight through the air, as it seemed to Toni, the snorting breath of the old charger, the delicious sense of bumping up and down, lifted him into an ecstasy. When the trooper came up the horse was sedately browsing by the wayside, and Toni, with his arms clasped around the horse’s neck and his black head down on his mane, was in a little Heaven of his own. The trooper, who had expected to find Toni lying by the roadside, mangled, was immensely relieved and swore at him out of pure joy, and, as a reward for not having got his neck broken, allowed Toni to ride the old charger back into the town. This was not to be compared with that wild flight through space, that glorious bumping up and down, that sense of delight in feeling the horse panting under him; but it was something.

Toni, trotting soberly home, concluded that he would not tell his mother, but he meant to tell Jacques all about it, and, putting his hand in his pocket, Jacques was not there! Oh, what agony was Toni’s then! He burst into a fit of weeping, and, rushing back to the riding-school, crawled around frantically everywhere the troopers would let him go, searching for his loved and lost Jacques. The story of his ride had got out by that time and he was not kicked and cuffed when he searched, with streaming eyes and loud sobs, for his dearly loved Jacques. But Jacques could not be found, not even along the stone street, nor by the lanes, nor across the old stone bridge, and the day grew dark to Toni. He searched all day, and when he went home at night and told his mother of his loss, Madame Marcel wept, too. It was no good to promise him a whole company of tin soldiers. They were only tin soldiers, but Jacques was his friend, his confidant, his other self, his oversoul. Toni cried himself to sleep that night. It was so lonely up in the little garret without Jacques! And Toni knew that Jacques was lonely without him. Toni pictured poor Jacques, alone and forlorn, lost in the tan-bark, or trampled under foot in the street, or floating down the darkling river, or perhaps being chewed up by the goats that browsed on the other side of the bridge. In the middle of the night Madame Marcel was awakened by Toni’s groans and cries.

“Oh, mama, mama!” he cried, “how lonely Jacques must be! What is he thinking of now? He has no musket to take care of himself. Oh, mama!”—and then Toni howled again.

The next day Toni was up at dawn searching for his beloved. He searched all the morning, but he could not find the lost one. When he came home to dinner at twelve o’clock, he met Paul Verney, and Paul saw by Toni’s woebegone look and tear-stained face that some calamity had befallen him. Toni had looked forward with triumphant pleasure to telling Paul about that wild ride on the old horse’s back, but he could give it no thought. Paul was kind and sympathetic and understood Toni’s sorrow, which was of some little comfort to the bereaved one. While the two boys sat together on the bench under the acacia tree, close to Madame Marcel’s shop, up came little Denise, as neat and pink and white as ever. One of her hands was closed, and, as she approached Toni, she said, in the sweetest small voice in the world: