He is my grandfather now--Charley Otis is--and he told my brother Hal
and me this story. He's a regular fine old gentleman, is my grandfather
Otis. There isn't a bit of old fogy about him, and he likes to see us
boys have any amount of fun. He isn't hard on a fellow either, when he
gets into trouble through some of his mischief; though he looked pretty
sober when Hal and I and Uncle Timothy's boys painted Squire Dexter's
Chester Whites one time, and the Squire caught us at it, and thrashed
us, and made father and Uncle Timothy pay ten dollars apiece to get out
of having a lawsuit.
"Don't have any more of that sort of fun, boys," says grandfather.
"No, sir," says we; and we don't mean to, for there isn't any fun in it.
Some folks in story-books are all the time preaching up how funny it is
to paint pigs. It isn't. If it is, it is mean fun, and I don't like that
kind. For besides making a fellow feel cheap, there's almost always
something not so nice to top off with.
"Boys will be boys, Susan." That's what grandfather says to mother time
and again.
"Well, they needn't be wild Indians," says mother. But she doesn't tell
father _that_ time. You see, my grandfather was a boy once himself, and
he knows we can't keep bottled up _all_ the time. We have to "let nature
caper"--that's what grandfather calls it--once in a while, or we would
burst, Hal and I, and go off like two rockets maybe. I hope when I grow
up I'll be just the kind of a grandfather my grandfather is.
Last Washington's Birthday we boys had planned to have no end of fun,
skating on the pond, and snapping crackers at folks, and playing
shinney. But when Hal and I got up in the morning, everything was dull
gray; and when breakfast was over, it was snowing as if the witches were
emptying all their feather-beds at once up in the sky.
Hal looked out of the window, and turned away, and shut his lips. Then I
looked out, and--well, I'm not very old, and small of my age--and I
cried. At that grandfather put down his paper.
"Hoity-toity!" said he; "what's all this about?"
We told him.
"Well," said grandfather, "this snow will make first-rate coasting, and
while you're waiting for enough of it to come, I'll tell you a story."
So here is the story. You ought to have heard Grandfather Otis tell it,
though, with his funny twinkles and wrinkles to set it off; but because
you couldn't, I'm going to tell it my own way, in regular story-book
style:
Early one Twenty-second of February, more than fifty years ago, my
grandfather and my two great-uncles, Stephen and Samuel, were out
looking for something to have fun with. "Trouble was," says grandfather,
"there was ice enough, but we hadn't a pair of skates to our feet."
Pretty soon, while they were standing around on the door-step, a man
came along leading a horse and sleigh, and hitched it to the fence. The
man's name was Mr. Nutt.
"Good-morning," said the boys, wondering to themselves what made him
walk and lead the horse, instead of riding. Catch a _boy_ doing it!
"Mornin'," said Mr. Nutt. "Father to home, boys?"
"Yes, sir," said they.
"I'm going after the doctor," said Mr. Nutt, "and that critter runs away
so'st I can't do nothin' with him. It's Lawyer Chadbourne's horse, down
to Westport, 'at I took for his keep, and that's more'n I'll get out 'n
him. S'pose I can get your father's team, boys?"
"Wouldn't wonder," said they. "Father's chopping wood in the north lot."
With that Mr. Nutt started off across the field, and the boys walked
down to the gate to look at the horse. He was a red horse, with
"three-white-feet-and-a-white-nose--take-off-his-shoes-and-give-him-
to-the-crows."
The boys walked around him, and looked at him, and felt of the harness.
"Looks kind enough," said Steve.
"Don't believe he'll run away," said Sam.
"The harness is stout," said Charley.
Then they all looked at each other and laughed.
"S'pose we do," said they; "and be spry about it."
So Sam and Charley got into the sleigh, and Steve unhitched the horse,
and got on behind, with one foot on each runner, and Charley took the
reins, and away they all went. The horse didn't go so very fast at
first, but he kept going faster and faster and faster; and pretty soon
the sleigh hit his heels. Then didn't he go!
"Stop him!" yelled Sam. "Whoa!"
"Whoa!" sung out Steve, a-hanging on to the sleigh back for dear life.
"We've go-go-gone far enough."
But there wasn't any whoa to that horse. And Steve made up his mind that
he'd ridden about as long as he wanted to, and so he dropped off. He
fell flat, and slid for as much as a rod on the ice before he stopped.
"Took every one of his wesket buttons off," says grandfather, "slick and
clean as you'd cut 'em with a knife."
But that didn't stop the horse--no, sir! On he went, with the old sleigh
clattering at his heels, and the ice his shoes cut up flew like sleet
into the faces of the two boys. All Charley could do was to keep him in
the road, and that's more than a good many would, _I_ say. And the horse
kept going faster and faster.
"Whe-ew!" said Sam, catching his breath. And he jumped out, and turned
two first-class summersets before he struck on his head in a snow-bank
beside the road. And there _he_ was.
Then Charley, my grandfather, was left all alone. That's why I call it
"Charley Otis's Ride." And the horse kept going faster and faster. And
Charley couldn't see a rod ahead of him, for the wind blowing and the
bits of ice flying, until, pretty soon, he began to go up a little hill.
And because for a minute the ice didn't fly so thick, Charley saw, just
ahead, and hobbling along as fast as his two poor shaky legs and his
knotty cane would carry him, old Grandsir Herrin, who wasn't anybody's
grandfather really, though everybody called him so. And Grandsir Herrin
was as deaf as the deafest kind of a post--and right in the middle of
the road! Now, sir--
No use to ask me what I'd have done if I'd been there. I wasn't there.
But I can tell you what Charley did, and I don't believe anybody could
have done any better. His heart thumped so he could almost hear it
through all the noise of the bells. But, quick as a flash, he put all
his strength on the right rein, and pulled that horse with a flying jump
into a big bank of snow drifted up against the road fence. And Charley
_kept right along_.
He picked himself up in a minute, and looked around. The horse was deep
in the snow, standing quiet enough, but trembling like a leaf. Charley
unharnessed him and got him out of the snow, and turned the sleigh, and
harnessed up again, and led the horse back to where he started from. Sam
and Steve were waiting by the gate.
Charley hitched the horse, and just then another man drove along, and
stopped.
"It's Lawyer Chadbourne," whispered Sam.
"Who left that horse there?" said the man, in a deep-down, pie-crusty
kind of a voice.
"Mr. Nutt, sir," answered Charley; "and he said he would run away. But
he don't look like he would."
"Well, well, I'm glad of it," growled the lawyer, and away he went.
And--
"Hello!" said grandfather, breaking off right here.
There was a thundering noise in the hall, and the door flew open.
"It's the Broomstick Brigade!" cried grandfather; for there were the May
boys and the Berry boys and Uncle Timothy's boys, and each one of 'em
carried a broom.
"Come along with you," said Ben May; "we're going to sweep the ice. It's
stopped snowing."
So it had, though we hadn't noticed. And so we took our skates and
brooms, and went along, Hal and I; and grandfather took up his paper
again.