Justin Morgan Had a Horse, Page 4

  “But shall always . . . ”

  “Obey my master’s commands . . . ”

  “Obey my master’s commands . . . ”

  “And keep his secrets.”

  “And keep his secrets.”

  The Justice stopped to scratch his ear with the goose-quill pen. Then he quickened his pace and went on without pausing now for Joel. “Said master shall teach said apprentice the art or mystery of a sawyer, and shall provide for him sufficient meat, drink, apparel, lodging, and washing befitting an apprentice, and shall send him to school every winter at night.”

  He took a deep breath, then plunged rapidly on, chanting the familiar words until they ran together without meaning. “At the completion of said term, the master shall provide for the apprentice one new suit of apparel, four shirts, and two neckletts.

  “In witness whereof Philip Goss, Thomas Chase, and Joel Goss have put their hands and seals this twenty-fifth day of September, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-five.”

  A spidery hand held out the goose-quill pen to Joel. And the whiny voice said, “Now, boy, sign here, in the presence of your father and Thomas Chase. and before me, Jacobus Spinks, Justice of the Peace for the village of Randolph in the County of Orange in the State of Vermont.”

  “Sign here!” ticked the clock. “Sign here! Sign here!”

  Again Joel turned to his father, eyes imploring: “Do I have to, Pa?”

  But again there was no answer. Mister Goss’s arms were folded across his chest and his gaze held to a fixed spot on the ceiling.

  At last Joel picked up the pen and curved his thumb and fingers about it. He sat down on the chair that the miller pulled up for him, and put his arm on the desk. His eye followed the black-nailed finger pointing to a dotted line.

  “Yes, Mister Spinks,” he murmured, “I see the place you mean.” And with trembling hand he wrote in his round childish scrawl:

  Joel Goss

  7. A Stranger Knocking

  YESTERDAY, today, tomorrow—all the same. Get up before dawn. Tiptoe down the ladder steps. Feed the fire. Sweep the hearth. Eat a dry oatcake. Head for the mill. Sweep up yesterday’s sawdust. Saw clapboards by hand. Saw pipe-staves. Eat sawdust. Breathe sawdust. Sawdust in your hair, your ears, your boots. Saw! Saw until your muscles ache!

  Yesterday, today, tomorrow dragging by, dragging by. Only the nighttimes different. The chores all done and supper eaten. And now the seeming miracle—now the nighttimes belonging to Joel.

  He was free then to go to evening school, where he read and wrote, and ciphered and sang. He sang until his lungs were fit to burst, as if the louder he sang, the sooner his big happiness would come.

  Then the moment Master Morgan dismissed class, Joel flew out the door and ran to the Jenks place—past the house, past the woodpile, past the chicken coops, leaping across the root cellar, to the shed behind the house.

  Suddenly all the tiredness washed out of the boy, and a sharp ecstasy filled him. There was Little Bub waiting for him, waiting to hear his name called out, waiting to scratch his head up and down Joel’s rough jacket.

  “Feller,” Joel would gasp, out of breath. “I been waitin’, too!”

  The colt’s quizzical face butted Joel. Then he stamped and pawed with a forefoot. “Let’s do something!” he seemed to say.

  Never was a creature more willing to be gentled. After but two lessons, he wore a halter as if it were part of him. Like his forelock. Or his tail. Fastening two ropes to the halter, Joel drove him around and around in a circle, teaching him to “git up” and to “whoa.”

  Next Joel slipped a bit in the colt’s mouth. At first Bub’s ears went back in displeasure. He did not mind rope or leather things, but iron felt cold and hard to his tongue. One night Joel warmed the bit in his hands and coated it with maple syrup. From then on Little Bub accepted it each time, actually reaching out for it, jaws open wide.

  Whenever the colt learned a new lesson, Joel told him what a fine, smart fellow he was. “Soon you’ll be big for your size!” he would say. “And then you’ve got to be so smart and willing that even an ornery man won’t have reason to whop ye. I couldn’t abide that!” he added in dread.

  Some nights Joel fastened a lantern to an old two-wheeled cart borrowed from Mister Jenks. Then, filling the cart with stones for weight, he drove Bub over the rolling hills. He practiced pulling him up short. He practiced walking him, trotting him, stopping and backing him.

  The moon waned and became full again. By now Joel was galloping Little Bub, galloping him bareback across the fields. And Bub wanted to go! It was as if the clean, cold air felt good in his lungs, as if he liked the night and the wind and the boy.

  One evening when Master Morgan remained late at school, Joel burst in on him so full of laughter he could scarcely talk. The other apprentice boys had gone long ago, and Joel’s laughter rang out so heartily in the empty room that the schoolmaster joined in without knowing why.

  Between spasms the boy managed to gasp, “You should’ve seed that little hound-dog run!”

  “What little hound-dog?”

  “Why, Mister Jenks’s yellow one,” giggled Joel, bursting into fresh laughter. “He come a-tearin’ out the house, yammering at Little Bub, tryin’ to nip his legs. Oh, ho, ho, ho!”

  “What did Bub do?”

  “What did he do?” shrieked Joel. “Why, he sprung forward like a cat outen a bag. And that idiot hound was too addled to go home. He streaked down the road with Bub after him.”

  Joel had to wipe away his tears before he could go on. “By and by,” he chuckled, “the hound got so beat out I took pity on him and reined in.”

  Master Morgan’s eyes twinkled. “I reckon Farmer Beane was right,” he said. “Seems as if Little Bub and dogs just don’t cotton to each other.”

  When Mister Goss first heard that Joel was training the schoolmaster’s colt, he was furious. But later, when neighbors marveled at the boy’s skill, he boasted and bragged about it: “All that boy knows about horses he got from me!”

  The truth of the matter was that in watching his father train a colt Joel had learned what not to do, as well as what to do. While his father could break and train in a matter of hours, his horses often seemed broken in spirit, too. The boy was determined that this should not happen to his colt. And it had not. Little Bub’s eyes were still dancy. He still tossed his mane and nosed the sky. He still had a frisky look about him. No, he had lost none of his spirit.

  Even in the rough winds of winter, the colt’s schooling went right on, night after night. And about the time when Joel began to think Little Bub might be his forever, a stranger came knocking at the schoolhouse door.

  School was in full session. A dozen apprentice boys were bent over their copybooks. As if on one stem, a dozen heads turned around.

  Master Morgan pushed his spectacles up on his forehead, brushed the chalk off his vest, and went to the door. “Come in, sir,” he said.

  A tall, gaunt man entered and sat down on the splint-bottomed chair which the schoolmaster offered. “Good evening,” he said in a voice that rolled out strong. “I’m Ezra Fisk, a new settler, and word has come to my ear that you have a horse to rent.”

  Eleven pens stopped scratching and eleven pairs of eyes looked up with interest. Joel’s pen skated wildly across the page as if his arm had been jolted out of its socket.

  “You will continue with your work,” the schoolmaster nodded to the boys. He could not bring himself to answer the man’s question at once.

  Mister Fisk filled in the silence that followed. “I’ve been watching a lad ride a smallish horse in the moonlight,” he said in his trumpet of a voice, “and by inquiring at the inn, I understand the horse belongs to you, sir.”

  Justin Morgan made a steeple out of his fingers. His Yes was spoken through tight lips.

  “You see,” the newcomer explained, “I have a piece of wooded land along the White River. And Robert Evans, my hired hand, will need a horse to help cle
ar it. This fellow, Evans, is a brawny man, and I figure he and a horse with some get-up-and-git could clear the land in a year’s time.”

  Master Morgan hesitated a long moment before he spoke. “You would like to buy the horse, sir?”

  “Tsk, tsk, Morgan. No, indeed! Who would buy such a little animal? As I said, I merely wish to rent him.”

  The schoolmaster stood up and looked questioningly at Joel. Ezra Fisk followed his glance. “That the boy who’s been riding the colt?”

  “Aye,” Master Morgan said very softly. “And for his sake I am loathe to part with the animal.”

  The visitor now lowered his voice, too. “I understand,” he said, leaning one arm on the desk, “that you are paid sometimes in Indian corn and sometimes the full sum of two dollars per week. Yet even the latter amount,” he added knowingly, “covers no such extras as horses and harpsichords.”

  Joel sat forward, holding his breath, trying to hear the next words.

  “But I, my good man,” and now the voice waxed strong again, “stand ready to pay fifteen dollars a year, and the animal’s keep, of course.”

  He said no more.

  The noise of the scratching pens faded away. A stray flutter of smoke went up the chimney with a faint hiss. Joel was afraid he was going to cry. He wanted to run to Little Bub and hide him away somewhere deep in the woods. Perhaps this was all a bad dream. It must be a bad dream! Why else would his head drop forward in a nod, answering Yes to the schoolmaster’s unspoken question?

  The next afternoon Joel was setting a log in the sawmill when he heard the creaking of a wagon wheel and the cloppety-clop of hoofs coming down the road. This in itself was nothing to make him stop work, but from the uneven beat of the hoofs he could tell that the animals were not traveling in a team. And then, without looking up, he knew. He knew that the lighter hoofbeats were those of Little Bub. He started the saw, and then he turned and faced the road.

  It was Little Bub, all right, not five rods away. He was tied to the back of a wagon pulled by a team of oxen. His reddish coat glinted in the sunlight, and he held his head high, as if he found nothing at all disgraceful in being tied to an oxcart.

  The blood hammered in Joel’s head. He might have called out, “Hi, Little Bub!” and felt the hot pride of having him nicker in reply. Instead, he kept hearing the schoolmaster’s words: “I’ve got to pay off my debts before I die. Will you gentle the colt for me, lad?”

  Well, Bub had been gentled, all right. Anyone could see that. With a heavy heart, Joel watched the procession as it passed him by, and then clattered over the log bridge and climbed up and up the steep hill. At last it disappeared over the brow, and nothing was left of it. Nothing, but a wisp of dust.

  8. The Pulling Bee

  IN THE weeks that followed, it was hard for Joel to pay attention to his work. He kept seeing Little Bub in the back of his mind, seeing him go lickety-split after the hound-dog, or just capering for the fun of it. And in the sound of the millwheel he kept hearing the high, bugling neigh. And often, when no one was looking, he would sniff his jacket to smell the very essence of Little Bub!

  In whatever Joel was doing—gathering stones for fences, wielding a mattock on stumps in the highway, working inside or outside—the little horse nudged into his thoughts.

  One day, when Joel was up inside the chimney sweeping away the soot, his ears picked out three names from the talk going on in the room below: Ezra Fisk, Robert Evans, Justin Morgan. Precariously his fingers clung to the bricks like a bird. If he made the least noise or if his bare feet slid into view, the talk might stop or take a new tack altogether. His toes found a narrow ledge of brick and caught a foothold. His whole body tensed with listening.

  “Yup,” a voice was saying, “the schoolmaster’s little horse is turning out to be a crack puller. Already he’s made a nice clearing of about five acres.”

  Another voice said, “So the little horse can pull, eh?”

  “Yup,” the first voice replied. “Evans brags that the critter can jerk a log right out of its bark!”

  A loud guffaw greeted the remark.

  In the dark of the chimney Joel smiled in pride. But what if—the smile faded, and worry crept in—what if Evans was working Little Bub too hard? What if he became swaybacked and old before his time?

  Joel had to know. Quickly he slid down the chimney and dropped to the hearth. But he was too late. All he saw was the whisk of a coattail and the door to the public room swinging shut, and at the same time Mistress Chase coming at him with a broken lock to be mended.

  As the days went by, Joel heard more and more about Little Bub’s labors, and his worry sharpened. At last he talked things over with Miller Chase.

  “Why, work don’t hurt horses,” Mister Chase said reassuringly. “It’s t’other way around. Idleness is what really hurts ’em. Their muscles git soft and their lungs git so small they can’t even run without wheezing.”

  And so Joel’s mind was eased.

  By the time spring came on, Joel and the miller were the best of friends. In the late afternoon while Mistress Chase napped, he often waved Joel away with a smile. “Be off with you now. Have a mite of fun,” he would say.

  Joel took delight in these free afternoon hours. At this time of day Chase’s Mill was the liveliest spot on the White River. Farmers would congregate to chat as they waited for the big saw to cut their logs. And often they tested the strength of their horses with a log-pulling contest. Surely, Joel thought, Little Bub must show up some day.

  It was on a late afternoon in April that his hopes were realized. The millstream had grown swollen with spring rains, and Mister Chase had taken on a helper to keep the mill sawing logs both night and day.

  On this afternoon, when the yard was crowded with farmers, the miller called to Joel. “See the man studying that-there pine log? That’s Nathan Nye. And if Nathan Nye is about, acting mighty important and bossy, you can be expecting most anything to happen. He was ever good at fixing pulling contests.”

  Joel watched the jerky-legged man hop from one group to another, like a puppet on a string.

  “If I was a boy, now, with no chores to do,” the miller smiled, “it seems like I’d skedaddle right out there and be in the center of things.”

  In no time at all Joel was helping Mister Nye wrap tug chains about the huge pine log. A big dappled mare stood waiting to have the chains hooked to her harness.

  The mare’s owner, Abel Hooper from Buttonwood Flats, was too busy bragging to be of any help. “A mighty lucky thing I’m first,” he was saying. “Big Lucy and me’ll pull this-here piece o’ kindling onto the logway in one pull. Then you can all hyper on home afore lantern time.”

  Abel Hooper had to eat his words. Big Lucy tried hard. She dug her forefeet into the earth and tugged and tugged, but the log barely trembled. Even when he poked her with the prodding stick, she only looked around as if to tell him it was useless.

  One after another the work horses had their turn. Yet no matter how whips cracked or masters yelled, the log seemed rooted to earth.

  Nathan Nye made a megaphone of his hands. “Folks!” he shouted. “Guess it’s just too hefty for a horse. You men with oxen can have a try now.”

  Just then a bearded farmer came riding up on a chunky young stallion. Joel’s heart missed a beat. Could this be Little Bub? This unkempt, mud-coated horse? Why, small as he was, he looked to be a six- or even a seven-year-old! Then Joel grinned as the little stallion let out a high bugle and a rumbling snort.

  “Wait!” called the big man astride the little horse. “Here’s a critter wants to try.”

  A smile, half scorn, half amusement, crossed Nathan Nye’s face. “Evans,” he said, “ye’re crazy as if ye’d burnt yer shirt. Look at Big Lucy. She’s still blowin’ from the try. And Biggie’s Belgian—his muscles are still a-hitchin’ and a-twitchin’. Even Wiggins’ beast failed. Can’t none of ’em budge that log.”

  “None exceptin’ my one-horse team!” crowed
Evans.

  Fear caught at Joel as a silence fell upon the crowd.

  And then came the rain of words, mingled with laughter.

  “That little sample of a horse!”

  “Why, his tail is long as a kite’s!”

  “Yeah, he’s liable to get all tangled up and break a leg.”

  “Morgan’s horse,” Evans said slowly, “ain’t exactly what you’d call a drafter, but whatever he’s hitched to generally has to come.”

  Joel heard the sharp voice of Mistress Chase calling: “Boy! You come here!”

  “Oh, rats!” he muttered under his breath. On the way to the inn he stopped long enough to put his cheek against Little Bub’s. “I’ll be back,” he whispered. “I’ll be right back.”

  Mistress Chase met him just inside the door with a kettle of hasty pudding. “Hang the kettle over the fire,” she commanded, “and stir and stir until I tell you to quit.”

  He hung the kettle on the crane and set to work. “Hasty pudding!” Joel cried to himself. “It beats me how it got its name! Nothing quick about this!” Suddenly he heard the clump of boots and looked around to see Evans, followed by a little company of men, strut into the inn.

  “Madam Innkeeper!” Evans called. “I’m wagering a barrel o’ cider that my horse can move the pine log. But now, pour me a mugful. I’m dying of thirst.”

  Joel was stirring so vigorously he almost upset the pudding. Mistress Chase let out a shriek. “Boy! Mind what you’re doing! Hasty pudding’s not meant to feed the fire!”

  For once he paid no heed. He tore across the room and grabbed Mister Evans by the sleeve. “Sir!’ he cried. “Little Bub’s been working hard all day. Please don’t ask him to pull that big log.”

  Evans gulped his drink. “Go ’way,” he snapped in annoyance. “When I want advice, I’ll not ask it of a whipper-snapper. I know that horse!” He stomped out of doors, the others joking and laughing behind him.

  While Joel stirred the pudding, he kept looking out the window. He could see Little Bub nibbling all the fresh green shoots within his range. And he could see the men sizing him up, feeling of his legs, then making their wagers.