Justin Morgan Had a Horse, Page 5

  One by one, the stars dusted the sky. Nathan Nye brought out a lantern so that Evans could see to fasten the tug chains to the log.

  “I just got to go out there now!” Joel pleaded. “Ma’am, if you please, could I?”

  Mistress Chase nodded. “You’re stirring so strong that hasty pudding’s heaving like a sea. Go on! Git out, afore ye upset it.”

  “Oh, thanks, ma’am,” Joel murmured as he bolted for the door, vaulted over a barrel of cider, and ran to the mill, where Evans was stepping off ten rods.

  “Aye, fellers!” he was saying. “Bub can do it—in two pulls.” He turned around, almost stumbling over the boy. “A nettle hain’t half as pesky as you,” he growled. “Out of my way or I’ll clout you!”

  Nathan Nye shouted to Evans. “Mebbe you’d oughter listen to the lad. Want to give up afore you start?”

  “No such-a-thing! Why, I’m actually ashamed to ask Morgan’s horse to pull a splinter like this. Now, if you’ll find me three stout men to sit astride the log, why, then I’ll ask him.”

  Joel ran to Little Bub. “Oh, my poor little feller,” he choked. “None of the big critters could do it, and now with three men besides!—Oh, Bub, Bub . . . ”

  Laughter was ringing up and down the valley. “Ho-ho-ho—that pint-sized cob to pull such a big log! Ho-ho . . . ”

  Nathan Nye had no trouble at all in finding three brawny volunteers. As the men straddled the log, they joked and laughed and poked one another in the ribs.

  “Look to your feet, men!” warned Evans. “This horse means business. Something’s got to give.”

  Nye held the lantern aloft. It lighted the huddle of faces. They were tense with excitement. Some of the men were placing last-minute bets. Some were chewing madly on wisps of hay. Others twirled their hats and wrung them nervously. Joel felt as if he were going to be sick.

  Evans repeated his warning. “Look to your feet, men!”

  Someone tittered.

  Then the silence exploded as Evans roared, “Git up!”

  The sharp word of command galvanized the little horse into action. His muscles swelled and grew firm. He backed ever so slightly. He lowered his head, doubling down into the harness. He lunged, half falling to his knees, straining forward, throwing his whole weight into the collar.

  A hush closed around the gathering. It hung heavy and ominous. Suddenly the very earth seemed to shake. The chains were groaning, the log itself trembling as if it had come alive. It began to skid. It was moving! The stout man aboard laughed hysterically, then sobered, trying to balance himself, clutching onto the others. The log kept on moving. It was halfway to the mill!

  The horse’s breath whistled in his lungs. His nostrils flared red in exertion. Sweat broke out on his body, lathering at the collar and traces. Joel, too, was drenched in sweat. He was struggling, straining, panting as if he were yoked alongside Little Bub.

  Now the terrible silence again as the horse stood to catch his wind. There was no sound at all from the crowd. Overhead a robin, trying to get settled for the night, chirped insistently.

  Now Evans commanded again. And again the horse backed slightly, then snatched the log into motion. Again the log was sliding, sliding, sliding. This time it did not stop until it reached the sawmill!

  Still none of the onlookers made a sound. The three men astride were as silent as the log they sat upon. Only the horse’s breathing pierced the quiet.

  Then as if a dike had opened, there was a torrent of noise. Everyone began shouting at once. “Hooray for Little Bub! Hooray for Evans and Justin Morgan! Hooray for the big-little horse!”

  Joel rushed over and threw his arms around Bub’s neck. His whole body ached, as if he had moved the log himself. “It’s over! It’s over! You did it, Bub! You did it!” he kept repeating, sobbing a little from exhaustion and relief.

  The horse lipped Joel’s cheek and neck. He almost tried to say, “It’s all right, boy; don’t be taking it so hard.” He was winded and leg-weary, but it was good to be near the boy again. It was good.

  He nickered softly.

  9. Stronger’n a Ox

  AFTER THE log-pulling contest Joel saw the little horse more often. Nearly every week Bub was challenged, and except for the time Nathan Nye disqualified him for starting too quickly and breaking the log chains, he always won.

  His fame as a strong puller grew, and men soon dropped the affectionate name of Little Bub. They spoke of him with respect: “Morgan’s horse is handy, quick, and strong” “Morgan’s horse can pull like living quicksand.” Everywhere he became known as “Morgan’s horse,” and his prowess spread up and down the valley.

  The schoolmaster himself began taking a lively interest in his colt. Much as he disliked noisy gatherings and betting, he could not stay away from the pulling matches. “Farmer Beane’s premium,” he told Joel one day after cheering himself hoarse, “just can’t be beat!”

  Day by day the colt’s muscles hardened, until at last Abel Hooper and the other farmers refused to enter their drafters and oxen in the pulling matches. “’Tain’t no use,” they said. “The Morgan’s stronger’n a ox.”

  Spring wore on, and another five acres of Mister Fisk’s land was cleared and burned over and planted. All up and down the valley men were pushing the wilderness back, then striking their axes in the black earth and dropping kernels of Indian corn in the holes they made.

  Mistress Chase had several acres of ground she called her own, and Joel was taken away from his work at the mill to seed it. He was told to bring his handspike along to dig the pockets for the kernels, but when he began covering them and tamping the earth with his boot, Mistress Chase went into a fury. “You get down on yer knees and press them seeds in with the heel of yer hand, not yer foot,” she yelled as she stood over him. “’Tain’t hocus-pocus makes corn grow; it’s out-and-out work.”

  To Joel the hours and the days of planting seemed never ending. Strike the earth with the handspike, drop in the kernels, press the earth. Strike, drop, press. Strike, drop, press. Twinges of pain shot through his legs, his back, his arms. Often at sundown he lay in the dirt and cried, hoping tomorrow would never come.

  Grown men, too, were worn out with planting. Even hoeing-in wheat and rye and oats was slow, back-breaking work. When night came, they longed for excitement, for something to make them forget their weariness. They missed the pulling matches.

  It was Nathan Nye who thought up quarter-mile racing. There was an open straightaway along one branch of the White River, quite free of trees. “I’ll make it into the neatest racing strip this side of New York!” he promised the settlers. On his black gelding he went to call on every tradesman in Randolph—the saddler, the carpenter, the printer, the blacksmith, the wigmaker, and all the rest. He figured that if each one lent his apprentice boy for an hour a day, the raceway could soon be scraped as smooth as any track in the big cities.

  Nathan Nye was a man who got what he wanted. He had a determination about him, and he knew how to put a question to get a Yes answer. “How-de-do,” he would say, shaking hands with the tradesman. “Ezra Sneveley and Josh Cobb wanter loan me their bound boys to fix up a strip for a little racing. How ’bout you?”

  While the man tried to make up his mind, Nathan Nye pounded his fist on his hand. “Where’d you be without the farmer? And him workin’ his insides out, making fields outa wilderness and crops outa fields. He needs a little fun at the tag end of day. Me and you got to lift his weariness.”

  The tradesman would bob his head up and down in agreement. Afterward he was never quite sure whether he had come to the decision on his own, or had just been swept along, the way a branch in a stream is swept along by the current.

  It was tedious work, making a race track out of a rutted path, but the apprentice boys welcomed the change. They arrived on the scene whistling and laughing and swinging big iron kettles. Under Nathan Nye’s direction, they turned the kettles upside down and dragged them back and forth, using the sharp rims as
planes to level off the path.

  Joel worked with a fierceness, scraping harder than the other boys, grubbing out every root with his bare fingers to be sure there were no knobs or snags. If Little Bub lost a race it would be no disgrace, but if he stumbled over a root and never got up again, then the disgrace and the hurt would be Joel’s.

  Nathan Nye watched over the work with a careful eye, scolding and encouraging the boys by turns. Finally one day he stood by with a look of satisfaction on his face. “Well, boys, that about does ’er,” he said. “Yes, that be a fair racing strip.”

  The day of the first race was bright and brisk. It was the kind of day that makes men and horses want to go. A strong wind was blowing down from the north. It got into the horses’ nostrils, exciting them.

  Mister Nye, who was both starter and timekeeper, argued for waiting. “We need more entries.” he said. “We’ve only three—my own black gelding, and Nanny Luddy here, and Morgan’s Bub. Why, our race course is wide enough for six, maybe seven, horses.”

  The other farmers were cagey and only shook their heads. They wanted to look on a time or two to see how fast was the pace and what horse they had to beat.

  But if entries were few, spectators were many. All the tradesmen were there, with their apprentice boys who had scraped the track, and all the farmers from roundabout, and friendly Indians from the Pennakook and Caughnawaga tribes, and of course the schoolmaster and Joel.

  Just before Mister Nye dropped his hat as the signal to go, Joel overheard the wigmaker say to the saddler, “The Morgan horse may be stronger’n a ox, but good pullers usually be slow runners. I’m betting on Nanny Luddy.”

  “Yeah,” the saddler agreed, “when it comes to running, a pulling horse is slow as a hog on ice with his tail froze in.”

  Joel bristled. He wanted to speak his mind, to tell the men how fast Little Bub could gallop. But the crowd was shouting, “Bring ’em on! Bring ’em on!”

  The Morgan drew center position. He was full of life and spirit, and at the drop of the hat he shot to the front with such a rush that the mare and the gelding just followed along, like horses hitched in tandem. It was all over so quickly that Joel and the schoolmaster stood staring in open-mouthed wonder. Not until Judge Nye announced that the Morgan had run the quarter-mile in thirty-six seconds did they whoop and holler with the rest.

  Then a voice spoke low. It was Joel’s voice whispering to himself. “I reckon he liked the track tol’able well.”

  He made his way through the crowd to Little Bub, who was trying to nose the people aside so he could reach the leaves of a big white elm. Joel leaped into the air, caught and bent the twig within range of Bub’s lips. “Yep, feller,” he smiled, as he ran his dirt-grimed hand over the lathered neck, “you must’ve liked the track tol’able well!”

  10. A Challenge from New York

  ON PLEASANT evenings now the cares and labors of the day were forgotten in the sport of racing. The most respected member of the community, the preacher, encouraged the fun by his mere presence. He knew that good fellowship made tomorrow’s tasks easier for his hard-working flock.

  Even Mistress Chase approved all the hullaballoo of the race matches. To her it meant the spectators would yell their throats dry, and call for freshening tankards of cider, along with her famous caraway cakes.

  As for Joel, he lived all the day for a sight of the Morgan horse, his Little Bub, flying down the track to victory.

  The horse himself took the sport in stride, just as he took work. He set his own record for speed, then broke it and set a new one. He became the most talked-about horse in the whole countryside. “That Morgan stallion’s a torpedo!” men said. “He’s partner to the wind.” “ ’Tis the fastest goer in all Vermont.” Wherever men gathered—around the cracker and pickle barrels at the general store, or at the inn, or in the churchyard after Sunday meeting—they wagged their heads and chuckled over the doings of the pint-sized stallion. His every characteristic was admired.

  “Beats me how he bugles a tune when he neighs.”

  “Mebbe it’s ’cause he belongs to the singin’ master!”

  Then the men would burst into hearty laughter, each one adding his own observation.

  “Beats me how he abominates dawgs; it’s like they all had the hydrophoby.”

  “Beats me how he disrelishes sorghum, but is sweet on maple sugar.”

  “Beats me how he can roll over, even on a uphill slant.”

  At last the talk flew beyond the state. One day the mail coach from Albany, New York, drew up to a stop in front of the old log schoolhouse. The driver, a smiling young fellow, jumped down and presented himself to the singing master, who came out to greet him.

  “Be ye Justin Morgan?”

  The schoolmaster nodded his Yes.

  “A wealthy gentleman,” the driver said, as he fished a letter from his boot, “give me this with sharp instruction to see you got it personal.” With a flourish he held out the letter. It was sealed with a splotch of wax and stamped with an elaborate coat of arms, and it smelled strongly of leather and snuff.

  The worry lines of Master Morgan’s brow deepened as he accepted the letter. He did not open it at once, but stood with his hand on the door latch. He watched the messenger climb onto his box and the coach-and-four lurch down the lane like some hunchbacked bug.

  From inside the schoolhouse came the deep voices of the older boys and the high chatter of the girls. The schoolmaster turned now and went in. A hush fell over the room as he said, “You are dismissed for the day.” He closed his song-book, put the pitch pipe away in the drawer of his desk, and began looking for his spectacles.

  One of the pupils laughed on his way out. “They’re on your head,” he said, pointing. Then he sobered as he saw the master’s frown.

  Some of the children were eager to leave, wanting to run and catch the mail coach; and some shuffled out slowly, curious to learn what the letter held. Master Morgan hurried the slow ones along. He had not received a letter since his sister Eunice’s husband had died, and if this one brought bad news, too, he wanted to be alone to read it.

  In the silence of the empty schoolroom he slid a penknife under the seal and with trembling fingers unfolded the fine white paper. The handwriting, too, was fine, feather-fine. He pulled his spectacles down from his forehead, but even then he had to step to the light of the window and bring the letter up close. Sniffing again the odors of leather and snuff, he at last forced himself to read the words.

  September 30, 1796

  New York

  Dear Sir:

  It has come to my ears, through my erstwhile friend, Ezra Fisk, that the beast rented by him is owned by you. He also informs me that in spite of the scrubby size of said animal, it has some ability to run.

  Now it so happens that my partner (the Honorable James Montague, Esquire) & I have business to attend in Brookfield, Vermont, a fortnight hence. We are the proud possessors of two elegant Thoroughbreds known as Silvertail and Sweepstakes. For stamina & speed, for form & symmetry, they are not surpassed by any creature, either in Europe (where they were bred) or in America.

  Hence what we propose is this: We challenge your work horse to run against our celebrated racers. The purpose being not for divertisement (amusement) but to prove, for once & all, the superiority of the Thorough-bred as against the mongrel-bred.

  My partner & I know of the paltry salaries paid to schoolmasters (some, we hear, receiving but sixty-seven cents per week). Therefore, you will owe us nothing if your beast lose. Should he win, howsomever, we stand ready to pay to you the full purse of fifty dollars.

  As our jockeys are hefty men, we stipulate that Fisk’s hired man act as jockey for your beast, and not any flyweight boy.

  For your edification, there is a beaver pond just beyond the Green Dragon Inn at Brookfield. A race course has been built around this pond, & I understand it measures a half mile & provides footing as good as may be expected in your backwoods country.


  In fine, unless we hear from you to the contrary, let us meet with our horses at the Green Dragon Inn, Brookfield, on the fifteenth day of October at the hour of five.

  I have the honour to be, et cetera,

  Jonathan Toppington

  Master Morgan’s face turned dark red in anger. With a show of vehemence, he creased the letter in its original folds and thrust it into the tail of his coat. The words scoured his mind. “Your mongrel-bred!” “Our elegant Thoroughbreds!” “Your work horse!” “Our celebrated racers!”

  Of a sudden Master Morgan’s world was all action. He hurried outside, locked the schoolhouse door, and began running down the lane toward the village. He heard the letter crackle as his coattails floated and flapped in the wind, and it made him run all the faster. Halfway there, he overtook Mister Jenks driving his ox team.

  “Justin! What’s wrong?” Mister Jenks’s voice was full of concern as he noted the flushed face of the schoolmaster.

  “I’m all right. Just riled.”

  “You had me scairt, man. I swear I thought the schoolhouse was afire or the hull class murdered by Injuns. Climb aboard! Me and Nip and Tuck’ll take you wherever ’twas you was goin’.”

  It struck the schoolmaster that whenever he needed help in a hurry, God sent Mister Jenks. He smiled now at the sunburnt face with its white lashes and brows. “If it please you, Jenks, would you be so kind as to drop me off at Ezra Fisk’s house in Randolph? And whilst we’re jogging along, I’ve an epistle to read you . . . soon as I catch my wind.”

  • • •

  Ezra Fisk lived in a comfortable, rented cottage while he waited for his land to be cleared and his own house to be built. When the schoolmaster arrived, the family was seated at the table, eating cold gander and hot bread.