the morning one feels fresh and strong and contented, and, when one has
time for any thought at all, there are comforting reflections that in
the nose-bags, swung under the truck-seat, are eight quarts of good
oats, and that noon must come some time or other.
But along about three o'clock of a July day, with stabling time too far
away to be thought of, when there was nothing to do but to stand
patiently in the glare of the sun-baked freight-yard, while Tim and his
helper loaded on case after case and barrel after barrel, then it was
that Chieftain could not help thinking about the fields of new grass,
and other things connected with his colt days.
Sometimes, when he was plodding doggedly over the hard pavements, with
every foot-fall jarring tired muscles, he would think how nice it would
be, just for a week or so, to tread again that yielding turf he had
known such a long, long time ago. Then, perhaps, he would slacken just a
bit on the traces, and Tim would give that queer, shrill chirrup of
his, adding, sympathetically: "Come, me bye, come ahn!" Then Chieftain
would tighten the traces in an instant, giving his whole attention to
the business of keeping them taut and of placing each iron-shod hoof
just where was the surest footing.
In this last you may imagine there is no knack. Perhaps you think it is
done off-hand. Well, it isn't. Ask any experienced draught-horse used to
city trucking. He will tell you that wet cobble-stones, smoothed by much
wear and greased with street slime, cannot be travelled heedlessly.
Either the heel or the toe calks must find a crevice somewhere. If they
do not, you are apt to go on your knees or slide on your haunches.
Flat-rail car-tracks give you unexpected side slips. So do the raised
rims of man-hole covers. But when it comes to wet asphalt--your calks
will not help you there. It's just a case of nice balancing and
trusting to luck.
Much, of course, depends on the man at the other end of the lines. In
this particular Chieftain was fortunate, for a better driver than Tim
Doyle did not handle leather for the company. Even "the old man"--the
stable-boss--had been known to say as much.
Chieftain had taken a liking to Tim the first day they turned out
together, when Chieftain was new to the city and to trucking. Driver
Doyle's fondness for Chieftain was of slower growth. In those days there
were other claimants for Tim's affections than his horses. There was a
Mrs. Doyle, for instance. Sometimes Chieftain saw her when Tim drove the
truck anywhere in the vicinity of the flat-house in which he lived. She
would come out and look at the team, and Tim would tell what fine horses
he had. There was a young Tim, too, a big, growing boy, who would now
and then ride on the truck with his father.
One day--it was during Chieftain's fifth year in the service--something
had happened to Mrs. Doyle. Tim had not driven for three days that time,
and when he did come back he was a very sober Tim. He told Chieftain all
about it, because he had no one else to tell. Soon after this young Tim,
who had grown up, went away somewhere, and from that time on the
friendship between old Tim and Chieftain became closer than ever. Tim
spent more and more of his time at the stable, until at the end, he
fixed himself a bunk in the night watchman's office and made it his
home.
So, for three years or more Chieftain had always had a good-night pat on
the flank from Tim, and in the morning, after the currying and rubbing,
they had a little friendly banter, in the way of love-slaps from Tim
and good-natured nosings from Chieftain. Perhaps many of Tim's
confidences were given half in jest, and perhaps Chieftain sometimes
thought that Tim was a bit slow in perception, but, all in all, each
understood the other, even better than either realized.
Of course, Chieftain could not tell Tim of all those vague longings
which had to do with new grass and springy turf, nor could he know that
Tim had similar longings. These thoughts each kept to himself. But if
Chieftain was of Norman blood, a horse whose noble sires had ranged
pasture and paddock free from rein or trace, Tim was a Doyle whose
father and grandfather had lived close to the good green sod, and had
done their toil in the open, with the cool and calm of the country to
soothe and revive them.
Of such delights as these both Chieftain and Tim had tasted scantily,
hurriedly, in youth; and for them, in the lapses of the daily grind,
both yearned, each after his own fashion.
And, each in his way, Tim and Chieftain were philosophers. As the years
had come and gone, toil-filled and uneventful, the character of the man
had ripened and mellowed, the disposition of the horse had settled and
sweetened.
In his earlier days Tim had been ready to smash a wheel or lose one, to
demand right of way with profane unction, and to back his word with
whip, fist, or bale-hook. But he had learned to yield an inch on
occasion and to use the soft word.
Chieftain, too, in his first years between the poles, had sometimes been
impatient with the untrained mates who from time to time joined the
team. He had taken part in mane-biting and trace-kicking, especially on
days when the loads were heavy and the flies thick, conditions which try
the best of horse tempers. But he had steadied down into a pole-horse
who could set an example that was worth more than all the six-foot
lashes ever tied to a whip-stock.
It was during the spring of Chieftain's eighth year with the company
that things really began to happen. First there came rheumatism to Tim.
Trucking uses up men as well as horses, you know. While it is the hard
work and the heavy feeding of oats which burn out the animal, it is
generally the exposure and the hard drinking which do for the men. Tim,
however, was always moderate in his use of liquor, so he lasted longer
than most drivers. But at one-and-forty the wearing of rain-soaked
clothes called for reprisal. One wet May morning, after vainly trying to
hobble about the stable, Tim, with a bottle of horse liniment under his
arm, gave it up and went back to his bunk.
Team No. 47 went out that day with a new driver, a cousin of the
stable-boss, who had never handled anything better than common,
light-weight express horses. How Chieftain did miss Tim those next few
days! The new man was slow at loading, and, to make up the time, he cut
short their dinner-hour. Now it is not the wise thing to hurry horses
who have just eaten eight quarts of oats. The team finished the day well
blown, and in a condition generally bad. Next day the new man let the
off horse stumble, and there was a pair of barked knees to be doctored.
Matters went from bad to worse, until on the fourth day came the climax.
Sludge acid is an innocent-appearing liquid which sometimes stands in
pools near gas-works. Good drivers know enough to avoid it. It is bad
for the hoofs. The new man still had many things to learn, and this
happened to be one of them. In the morning Team 47 was disabled. The
company's veterinary looked at the spongy hoofs and remarked to the
stable-boss: "About three weeks on the farm will fix 'em all right, I
guess; but I should advise you to chuck that new driver out of the
window; he's too expensive for us."
That was how Chieftain's yearnings happened to be gratified at last. The
company, it seems, has a big farm, somewhere "up State," to which
disabled horses are sent for rest and recuperation. Invalided drivers
must look out for themselves. You can get a hundred truck drivers by
hanging out a sign: good draught horses are to be had only for a price.
Chieftain and Tim parted with mutual misgivings. To a younger horse the
long ride in the partly open stock-car might have been a novelty, but to
Chieftain, accustomed to ferries and the sight of all manner of wheeled
things, it was without new sensations.
At the end of the ride--ah, that was different. There were the sweet,
fresh fields, the springy green turf, the trees--all just as he had
dreamed a hundred times. Halterless and shoe-freed, Chieftain pranced
about the pasture for all the world like a two-year-old. With head and
tail up he ranged the field. He even tried a roll on the grass. Then,
when he was tired, he wandered about, nibbling now and then at a
tempting bunch of grass, but mainly exulting in his freedom. There were
other company horses in the field, but most of them were busy grazing.
Each was disabled in some way. One was half foundered, one had a
leg-sprain, another swollen joints; but hoof complaints, such as
toe-cracks, quarter-cracks, brittle feet, and the like, were the most
frequent ills. They were not a cheerful lot, and they were unsociable.
Chieftain went ambling off by himself, and in due time made acquaintance
with a rather gaunt, weather-beaten sorrel who hung his head lonesomely
over the fence from an adjoining pasture. He seemed grateful for the
notice taken of him by the big Norman, and soon they were the best of
friends. For hours they stood with their muzzles close together or their
necks crossed in fraternal fashion, swapping horse gossip after the
manner of their kind.
The sorrel, it appeared, was farm-bred and farm-reared. He knew little
or nothing of pavements and city hauling. All his years had been spent
in the country. In spite of his bulging ribs and unkempt coat Chieftain
almost envied him. What a fine thing it must be to live as the sorrel
lived, to crop the new grass, to feel the turf under your feet, and to
drink, instead of the hard stuff one gets from the hydrant, the soft
sweet brook water, to drink it standing fetlock deep in the
hoof-soothing mud! But the sorrel was lacking in enthusiasm for country
life.
About the fifth day of his rustication the sharp edge of Chieftain's
appreciation became dulled. He discovered that pasture life was wanting
in variety. Also he missed his oats. When one has been accustomed to
twenty-four quarts a day, and hay besides, grass seems a mild
substitute. Graze industriously as he would, it was hard to get enough.
The sorrel, however, was sure Chieftain would get used to all that.
In time, of course, the talk turned to the pulling of heavy loads. The
sorrel mentioned the yanking of a hay-rick, laden with two tons of
clover, from the far meadow lot to the barn. Two tons! Chieftain snorted
in mild disdain. Had not his team often swung down Broadway with sixteen
tons on the truck? To be sure, narrow tires and soft-going made a
difference.
The country horse suggested that dragging a breaking plough through old
sod was strenuous employment. Yes, it might be, but had the sorrel ever
tightened the traces for a dash up a ferry bridgeway when the tide was
out? No, the sorrel had done his hauling on land. He had never ridden on
boats. He had heard them, though. They were noisy things, almost as
noisy as an old Buckeye mower going over a stony field.
[Illustration: Then let him snake a truck down West Street.]
Noise! Would the sorrel like to know what noise really was? Then let him
be hooked into a triple Boston backing hitch and snake a truck down West
Street, with the whiffle-trees slatting in front of him, the
spreader-bar rapping jig time on the poles, and the gongs of street-cars
and automobiles and fire-engines and ambulances all going at once.
Noise? Let him mix in a Canal Street jam or back up for a load on a
North River pier!
And as Chieftain recalled these things the contrast of the pasture's
oppressive stillness to the lively roar of the familiar streets came
home to him. Who was taking his place between the poles of Team 47? Had
they put one of those cheeky Clydes in his old stall? He would not care
to lose that stall. It was the best on the second floor. It had a window
in it, and Sundays he could see everything that went on in the street
below. He could even look into the front rooms of the tenements across
the way. There was a little girl over there who interested Chieftain
greatly. She was trying to raise some sort of a flower in a tin can
which she kept on the window-ledge. She often waved her hand at
Chieftain.
Then there was poor Tim Doyle. Good old Tim! Where was another driver
like him? He made you work, Tim did, but he looked out for you all the
time. Always on the watch, was Tim, for galled spots, chafing sores,
hoof-pricks, and things like that. If he could get them he would put on
fresh collar-pads every week. And how carefully he would cover you up
when you were on the forward end of a ferryboat in stormy weather. No
tossing the blanket over your back from Tim. No, sir! It was always
doubled about your neck and chest, just where you most need protection
when you're steaming hot and the wind is raw. How many drivers warmed
the bits on a cold morning or rinsed out your mouth in hot weather? Who,
but Tim could drive a breast team through a----
But just here Chieftain heard a shrill, familiar whistle, and in a
moment, with as much speed as his heavy build allowed, he was making his
way across the field to where a short, stocky man with a broad grin
cleaving his face, was climbing the pasture-fence. It was Tim Doyle
himself.
Tim, it seems, had so bothered the stable-boss with questions about the
farm, its location, distance from the city, and general management, that
at last that autocrat had said: "See here, Doyle, if you want to go up
there just say so and I'll send you as car hostler with the next batch.
I'll give you a note to the farm superintendent. Guess he'll let you
hang around for a week or so."
"I'll go up as hostler," said Tim, "but you just say in that there note
that Tim Doyle pays his own way after he gets there."
In that way it was settled. For some four days Tim appeared to enjoy it
greatly. Most of his time he spent sitting on the pasture-fence, smoking
his pipe and watching the grazing horses. To Chieftain alone he brought
great bunches of clover.
About the fifth day Tim grew restive. He had examined Chieftain's hoofs
and pronounced them well healed, but the superintendent said that it
would be a week before he should be ready to send another lot of horses
back to the city.
"How far is it by road?" asked Tim.
"Oh, two hundred miles or so," said the superintendent.
"Why not let me take Chieftain down that way? It'd be cheaper'n shippin'
him, an' do him good."
The superintendent only laughed and said he would ship Chieftain with
the others, when he was ready.
That evening Tim sat on the bench before the farm-house and smoked his
pipe until everyone else had gone to bed. The moon had risen, big and
yellow. In a pond behind the stables it seemed as if ten thousand frogs
had joined in one grand chorus. They were singing their mating song, if
you know what that is. It is not altogether a cheerful or harmonious
effort. Next to the soughing of a November wind it is, perhaps, the most
dismally lonesome sound in nature.
For two hours Tim Doyle smoked and thought and listened. Then he knocked
the ashes out of his pipe and decided that he had been long enough in
the country. He would walk to the station, two miles away, and take the
midnight train to the city. As he went down the farm road skirting the
pasture he saw in the moonlight the sheds where the horses went at night
for shelter. Moved by some sudden whim, he stopped and whistled. A
moment later a big horse appeared from under the shed and came toward
him, neighing gratefully. It was Chieftain.
"Well, Chieftain, me bye, I'll be lavin' ye for a spell. But I'll have
yer old stall ready against yer comin' back. Good-by, laddie," and with
this Tim patted Chieftain on the nose and started down the road. He had
gone but a few steps when he heard Chieftain whinny. Tim stopped
irresolutely, and then went on. Again came the call of the horse. There
was no misunderstanding its meaning. Tim walked back to the fence.
In the morning the farm superintendent found on the door-sill a roughly
pencilled note which read:
"Hav goan bak to the sitty P S chefetun warnted to goe so I tuk him. Tim
Doyle."
They were ten days on the road, ten delightful days of irresponsible
vagabondism. Sometimes Tim rode on Chieftain's back and sometimes he
walked beside him. At night they took shelter in any stable that was
handy. Tim invested in a bridle and saddle blanket. Also he bought oats
and hay for Chieftain. The big Norman followed his own will, stopping to
graze by the roadside whenever he wished. Together they drank from
brooks and springs. Between them was perfect comradeship. Each was in
holiday mood and each enjoyed the outing to the fullest. As they passed
through towns they attracted no little attention, for outside of the
city 2,000-pound horses are seldom seen, and there were many admirers
of Chieftain's splendid proportions. Tim had many offers from shrewd
horse-dealers.
"Ye would, eh? A whole hundred dollars!" Tim would answer with fine
sarcasm. "Now, wouldn't that be too much, don't ye think? My, my, what a
generous mon it is! G'wan, Chieftain, er Mister Car-na-gy here'll be
after givin' us a lib'ry."
Chieftain, and Tim, too, for that matter, were nearer actual freedom
than ever before. For years the big Norman had used his magnificent
muscles only for straining at the traces. He had trod only the hard
pavements. Now, he put forth his glorious strength at leisure, moving
along the pleasant country roads at his own gait, and being guided only
when a turning was to be made.
Fine as it all was, however, as they drew near to the city both horse
and driver became eager to reach their old quarters. Tim was, for he has
said so. As for Chieftain--let the stable-boss, who knows horse-nature
better than most men know themselves, tell that part of the story.
"Bigger lunatics than them two, Tim Doyle and old Chieftain, I never set
eyes on," he says. "I was standin' down here by the double doors
watchin' some of the day-teams unhook when I looks up the street on a
sudden. An' there, tail an' head up like he was a 'leven-hundred-pound
Kentucky hunter 'stead of heavy-weight draught, comes that old
Chieftain, a whinnyin' like a three-year-old. An' on his back, mind you,
old Tim Doyle, grinnin' away 'sif he was Tod Sloan finishin' first at
the Brooklyn Handicap. Tickled? I never see a horse show anything so
plain in all my life. He just streaked it up that runway and into his
old stall like he was a prodigal son come back from furren parts.
"Yes, Tim he's out on the truck with his old team. Tim don't have to
drive nowadays, you know. Brother of his that was in the contractin'
business died about three months ago an' left Tim quite a pile. Tim, he
says he guesses the money won't take no hurt in the bank and that some
day, when he an' Chieftain git ready to retire, maybe it'll come in
handy."
BARNACLES
WHO MUTINIED FOR GOOD CAUSE
With his coming to Sculpin Point there was begun for Barnacles the most
surprising period of a more or less useful career which had been filled
with unusual equine activities. For Barnacles was a horse, a white horse
of unguessed breed and uncertain age.
Most likely it was not, but it may have been, Barnacles's first intimate
connection with an affair of the heart. Said affair was between Captain
Bastabol Bean, owner and occupant of Sculpin Point, and Mrs. Stashia
Buckett, the unlamenting relict of the late Hosea Buckett.
Mrs. Buckett it was who induced Captain Bastabol Bean to purchase a
horse. Captain Bean, you will understand, had just won the affections of
the plump Mrs. Buckett. Also he had, with a sailor's ignorance of
feminine ways, presumed to settle off-hand the details of the coming
nuptials.
"I'll sail over in the dory Monday afternoon," said he, "and take you
back with me to Sculpin Point. You can have your dunnage sent over later
by team. In the evenin' we'll have a shore chaplain come 'round an' make
the splice."
"Cap'n Bean," replied the rotund Stashia, "we won't do any of them
things, not one."
"Wha-a-at!" gasped the Captain.
"Have you ever been married, Cap'n Bean?"
"N-n-no, my dear."
"Well, I have, and I guess I know how it ought to be done. You'll have
the minister come here, and here _you'll_ come to marry me. You won't
come in no dory, either. Catch me puttin' my two hundred an' thirty
pounds into a little boat like that. You'll drive over here with a
horse, like a respectable person, and you'll drive back with me, by land
and past Sarepta Tucker's house so's she can see."
Now for more than thirty years Bastabol Bean, as master of coasting
schooners up and down the Atlantic seaboard, had given orders. He had
taken none, except the formal directions of owners. He did not propose
to begin taking them now, not even from such an altogether charming
person as Stashia Buckett. This much he said. Then he added:
"Stashia, I give in about coming here to marry you; that seems no more
than fair. But I'll come in a dory and you'll go back in a dory."
"Then you needn't come at all, Cap'n Bastabol Bean."
Argue and plead as he might, this was her ultimatum.
"But, Stashia, I 'ain't got a horse, never owned one an' never handled
one, and you know it," urged the Captain.
"Then it's high time you had a horse and knew how to drive him. Besides,
if I go to Sculpin Point I shall want to come to the village once in a
while. I sha'n't sail and I sha'n't walk. If I can't ride like a lady I
don't go to the Point."
The inevitable happened. Captain Bean promised to buy a horse next day.
Hence his visit to Jed Holden and his introduction to Barnacles, as the
Captain immediately named him.
As one who inspects an unfamiliar object, Captain Bean looked dazedly at
Barnacles. At the same time Barnacles inspected the Captain. With head
lowered to knee level, with ears cocked forward, nostrils sniffing and
under-lip twitching almost as if he meant to laugh, Barnacles eyed his
prospective owner. In common with most intelligent horses, he had an
almost human way of expressing curiosity.
Captain Bean squirmed under the gaze of Barnacles's big, calm eyes for a
moment, and then shifted his position.
"What in time does he want anyway, Jed?" demanded the Captain.
"Wants to git acquainted, that's all, Cap'n. Mighty knowin' hoss, he is.
Now some hosses don't take notice of anything. They're jest naturally
dumb. Then agin you'll find hosses that seem to know every blamed word
you say. Them's the kind of hosses that's wuth havin."
"S'pose he knows all the ropes, Jed?"
"I should say he did, Cap'n. If there's anything that hoss ain't done in
his day I don't know what 'tis. Near's I can find out he's tried every
kind of work, in or out of traces, that you could think of."
"Sho!" The Captain was now looking at the old white horse in an
interested manner.
"Yes, sir, that's a remarkable hoss," continued the now enthusiastic Mr.
Holden. "He's been in the cavalry service, for he knows the bugle calls
like a book. He's travelled with a circus--ain't no more afraid of
elephants than I be. He's run on a fire engine--know that 'cause he
wants to chase old Reliance every time she turns out. He's been a
street-car hoss, too. You jest ring a door gong behind him twice an' see
how quick he'll dig in his toes. The feller I got him off'n said he knew
of his havin' been used on a milk wagon, a pedler's cart and a hack.
Fact is, he's an all round worker."
"Must be some old by your tell," suggested the Captain. "Sure his
timbers are all sound?"
"Dun'no' 'bout his timbers, Cap'n, but as fer wind an' limb you won't
find a sounder hoss, of his age, in this county. Course, I'm not sellin'
him fer a four-year-old. But for your work, joggin' from the P'int into
the village an' back once or twice a week, I sh'd say he was jest the
ticket; an' forty-five, harness an' all as he stands, is dirt cheap."
Again Captain Bean tried to look critically at the white horse, but once
more he met that calm, curious gaze and the attempt was hardly a
success. However, the Captain squinted solemnly over Barnacles's withers
and remarked:
"Yes, he has got some good lines, as you say, though you wouldn't
hardly call him clipper built. Not much sheer for'ard an' a leetle too
much aft, eh?"
At this criticism Jed snorted mirthfully.
"Oh, I s'pose he's all right," quickly added the Captain. "Fact is, I
ain't never paid much attention to horses, bein' on the water so much.
You're sure he'll mind his helm, Jed?"
"Oh, he'll go where you p'int him."
"Won't drag anchor, will he?"
"Stand all day if you'll let him."
"Well, Jed, I'm ready to sign articles, I guess."