IN a way Henry Dunbar was like Texas, whence he had come with his
sister Florence to go to school in Griggsby. Colonel Buckstone had often
referred to him as “The Lone Star.” He was big, warm-hearted, and brave,
could turn a hand-spring, and was the best ball-player at the academy.
He could also smoke and chew tobacco.
“Have a chew?” he asked, the first day we met.
I confessed with shame that I was not so accomplished.
“If you get sick, take some more,” he said. “That's the only way.
Everybody chews that is anybody.”
It was almost true. Many of the leading men went about with a bulge on
one side of their faces. An idea came to me. I would show Henry that I
had at least one manly accomplishment. So I conducted him to the Smead
stable and began rubbing a leg of Montravers. Henry was impressed;
he wanted to try it, and did, and thereby the horse got hold of his
imagination also.
Next morning at daylight we went down to the fairground to see
Montravers driven. There were other horses at work, and the shouts
of the drivers and the swift tattoo of the hoofs quickened our pulses
before we could see the track. The scene, so full of life and spirit,
thrilled us. It was fine bait for boys and men. In our excitement we
thought neither of school nor of breakfast.
By and by the leading citizens began to arrive in handsome runabouts and
to take their places on the grand stand.
“That's Colonel Sile Buckstone,” Henry whispered.
There was no mistaking the Colonel's bovine head and scarlet blossom.
His voice roared a greeting to every newcomer. His son Ralph, our
schoolmate, arrived with his father, and joined us down by the wire.
Senator Griggs, Judge Warner, and a number of leading merchants had also
arrived. These men had what was called a fine “delivery.” Most of them
sat in broadcloth and silk hats, expectorating with a delivery at once
exact and impressive. There was the resounding Websterian tone coupled
with a rustic swagger and glibness that could be found in every country
village. What vocal and pedestrial splendor was theirs as they rose and
strode to the sulky of Montravers, who had finished a trial heat! Much
of the splendor had been imported from the capitals by Smithers, Brooks,
and Buckstone; but more of it was natural Websterian effulgence.
Mr. Smead was right; the trotter was indeed the friend and ally of
the “conversationalist.” How well those high-sounding names fitted the
Websterian tone--Montravers, Hambletonian, Abdallah, Mambrino Chief.
And so it was with all the vivid phrases of the racetrack. The sleek,
high heads and spurning feet of the horses seemed to stimulate and
reflect the Websterian spirit. When a man looked at one of those horses
he unconsciously tightened his check rein. If his neck was a bit weary,
he felt for his flask or set out for the Palace Hotel.
Those great men complimented Mr. Smead on his horse, and the Senator
bet a hundred dollars with the Congressman that Montravers would win his
race.
“Let us bet on that horse,” said Henry to me; “we can't lose.”
I confessed with some shame that I did not know how to bet.
“That's easy,” said Henry. “I'll show you how when the time comes.”
Then we went round among the stables.
What a center of influence and power was that half-mile track and the
stables about it. It was a primary school of crime, with its museum of
blasphemy and its department of slang and lewdness. What a place for the
tender soul of youth!
There were the sleek trotters passing in and out, booted for their work.
In the sulkies behind them were those cursing, kinglike, contemptuous
jockeys, so sublime and exalted that they were even beyond the reach of
our envy. There were the great prancing, beautiful stallions, and the
swipes--heroic, foul-mouthed, proud, free, and some of them dog-faced.
Scarred, sniffing bulldogs were among them, spaniels with grace locks
on their brows, sleek little fox terriers, and now and then a roaring
mastiff. How we envied them! We became their willing slaves, we boys of
the school, fetching water and sweeping floors for the sacred privilege
of rubbing a horse's leg. In the end some had been kicked out of the
stables, but they did not mind that. What was that if they could only
play swipes and rub a horse's leg? It only heightened their respect and
their will to return.
As my life went on I saw how these leading lights of Griggsby shone,
like stars, above the paths of the young who were choosing their way.
We boys began to think that greatness was like a tree, with its top in
the brain and its roots in the human stomach, and that the latter needed
much irrigation. It seemed to us that poker, inebriety, slangy wit, and
the lavish hand were as the foliage of the tree; that fame, wealth,
and honor were its fruit; that the goat, the trot-ting-horse, and the
millinery store were as birds of the air that sometimes lit in its
branches.
We boys were wont to gather in an abandoned mill near the Smead
house, on the river bank, after school, for practice in chewing and
expectoration, and to discuss the affairs of the village.
One day Henry Dunbar and Ralph Buckstone had a little flask of whisky,
which they had stolen from the coat pocket of old Thurst Giles as he lay
drunk in the lumber yard. Henry held it up and gave us an able imitation
of John Griggs in the bar-room of the Palace Hotel, through the open
door of which we boys had witnessed bloody and amusing episodes.
“Gentlemen, here's to the juice of the corn,” he began, in the swelling
tone of Griggs. “The inspiration of poetry, the handmaid of eloquence,
the enemy of sorrow, the friend of genius, the provoker of truth.”
It was rather convincing to the youthful mind, coming as it did from the
lips of the great Griggs. We wondered how it was that old Thurst
Giles and Billy Suds, and other town drunkards, had failed to achieve
greatness. They were always soaked; Ralph said that the juice did not
have a fair chance in such men, that they were too poor and scrawny, and
their stomachs too small. They lacked capacity. It was like putting seed
in thin soil. Everybody knew that John Griggs could drink a whole big
bottle and walk off as if nothing had happened.
Henry Dunbar said that a man had to have money and clothes and a good
voice, and especially a high hat, as well as whisky and cigars, to
amount to anything.
Tommy West thought that the failure of Thurst and Billy was due to the
fact that they were dirty and mean, and could not make a speech. In his
view, also, they didn't shave often enough. If a man used whisky just
for the sake of keeping up appearances, it was all right; but if he used
it to get drunk with, it made him just naturally comical.
Parents, ministers, and Sunday schools were temporary obstacles to
the wearing of beaver hats, the carrying of gold-headed canes, and the
driving of fast horses. It would not do for a boy to be swelling around
bigger than his father, but when we had become large and strong and
worthy, the beaver and its accompaniments would be added unto us. Some
of us got the idea--although none of us dared to express it--that our
fathers were not so great or so grand as they might be, and we thought
we knew the reason. Luckily, from this last of our secret sessions I
went home sick, convinced that a humble life was best for me.
The next day Florence sent a note to my room, saying that she wished to
see me. We went out for a walk together.
“I'm going to look after you,” she said. “You haven't any mother here,
and you need me. You've simply _got_ to behave yourself.”
She stopped, faced me, and stamped her pretty foot on the ground, and
there were tears in her blue eyes. She turned me about and took my arm
and held it dose against her side as we walked on in silence.
“I don't know how--that's what's the matter with me,” I said,
helplessly.
“Don't worry,” she answered. “I'm only a girl, but I can give you
lessons in the art of being a gentleman if--if necessary. I owe much to
you, Havelock, and I can't forget it. I shall not let you be a fool.”
“I can't help it,” I said.
“Then _I'll_ try to help it,” she answered. “At least, I'll make it hurt
you.”
I did my best after that--not very well, I fear, but my best, all things
considered--and kept my heart decently clean for her sake. More than
once I wept for sorrow over my adventure through the ice, for it had
made me give her up.
That night I told Ralph that Florence loved him, and how I knew. It was
a sublime renunciation. After all, what is better than the heart of a
decent boy? I wish it were mine again.
“I love her, too,” he said, “but I haven't dared to tell her of it. I'm
going to see her now.”
After that Ralph was a model student and a warm friend of mine.