Elbow-Room: A Novel Without a Plot

by Charles Heber Clark

  CHAPTER IV.

  _THE FACTS IN REFERENCE TO MR. BUTTERWICK'S HORSE_.

  Mr. Butterwick is not a good judge of horses, but a brief while ago hethought he would like to own a good horse, and so he went to a sale ata farm over in Tulpehocken township, and for some reason that has notyet been revealed he bid upon the forlornest wreck of a horse thatever retained vitality. It was knocked down to him before he had achance to think, and he led it home with something like a feeling ofdismay. The purchase in a day or two got to be the joke of the wholevillage, and people poked fun at Butterwick in the most mercilessmanner. But he was inclined to take a philosophical view of thematter, and to present it in rather a novel and interesting light.When I spoke to him of the unkind things that were said about thehorse, he said,

  "Oh, I know that they say he has the heaves; but one of the things Ibought him for was because he breathes so loud. That is a sign that hehas a plenty of wind. You take any ordinary horse, and you can't hearhim draw a breath; his lungs are frail and he daren't inflate 'em. Butmy horse fills his up and blows 'em out again vigorously, so peoplecan hear for themselves how he enjoys the fresh air. Now, I'll let youinto a secret, only mind you don't go to whispering it about: When youwant to buy a horse, go and stand off a quarter of a mile and see ifyou can hear him kinder sighing. If you can, why go for that horse;he's worth his weight in gold. That's strictly between you and me, nowmind!

  "And you know that old idiot, Potts, was trying to joke me because thehorse was sprung in the knees, as if that was not the very thing thatmade me resolve to have that horse if I ran him up to five hundreddollars! You are a young man with no experience in the world, and I'lltell you why I like such legs: They give the horse more leverage. Doyou see? When a horse's leg is straight, the more he bears on it,the more likely he is to fracture the bone. But you curve that leg alittle to the front, and the upper bone bears obliquely on thelower bone, the pressure is distributed and the horse has plenty ofpurchase. It is the well-known principle of the arch, you know. Ifit's good in building a house, why isn't it good in getting up ahorse? Sprung in the knees! Why, good gracious, man! a horse that isnot sprung is not any horse at all; he is only fit for soap-fat andglue. Now, that's as true as my name's Butterwick.

  "And as for his tail, that they talk so much about! Who'n the thunderwanted a long tail on the horse? I knew well enough it was short andhad only six or seven hairs on it. But the Romans and Egyptians madetheir horses bob-tailed, and why? Maybe you ain't up in ancienthistory? Why, those old Romans knew that a horse with a fifteen-inchtail had more meat on him than a horse with a four-inch tail, andconsequently required more nourishment. They knew that more muscularforce is expended in brandishing a long tail than a short one, andmuscular force is made by food, so they chopped off their horses'tails to make 'em eat less. They had level heads in those times. Theywere up in scientific knowledge. But what do these idiots around thistown know about such things? Let 'em laugh. I can stand a tail thatsaves me a couple of bushels of oats a year. I'll bet you anythingthat there's millions and millions of dollars wasted--just thrownaway--in this country every year furnishing nutriment to tails thatare of no earthly use to the horses after they're nourished. You candepend on that. I've examined the government statistics, and they'reenough to make a man cry to see how wasteful the American people are.

  "And when you talk about his ribs showing so plainly through hissides, you prove that you have a very singular want of taste. Which ishandsomer, a flat wall or a wall with a surface varied with columnsand pilasters? Well, then, when you take a horse, no man who loves artwants to see him smooth and even from stem to stern. What you want isa varied surface--a little bit of hill and a little bit of valley; andyou get it in a horse like mine. Most horses are monotonous. They tireon you. But swell out the ribs, and there you have a horse that alwayspleases the eye and appeals to the finer sensibilities of the mind.Besides, you are always perfectly certain that he has his full numberof ribs, and that the man you buy him of is not keeping back a single,solitary bone. Your horse is all there, and you go to bed at nightcomfortable because you know it. That's the way I look at it; andwithout caring to have it mentioned around, I don't mind telling youthat I know a man who came all the way from Georgia to buy my horsesimply because he heard that his ribs stuck out. I got my bid in aheadof him, and he went home the worst disgusted man you ever saw.

  "And about his having glanders and botts and blind staggers and a rawshoulder, I can tell you that those things never attack any but athoroughbred horse; and for my part, I made up my mind years ago, whenI was a child, that if any man ever offered me a horse that hadn'tblind staggers I wouldn't take him as a gift. Now, that's as true asyou're alive. Professor Owen says that so far from regarding glandersas a disease he considers it the crowning glory of a good horse, andhe wants the English government to pass a law inoculating every horseon the island with it. You write to him and ask him if that ain't so."

  And so Butterwick put his phenomenal horse in his stable, hired anIrishman to take care of it, and possessed his soul in peace. However,before he fairly had a chance to enjoy his purchase, he was summonedto St. Louis to look after some business matters, and he was detainedthere for about six weeks. During his absence Mrs. Butterwick assumedthe responsibility for the management of the horse; and as she knewas much about taking care of horses as she did about conducting theprocesses of the sidereal system, the result was that Mr. Butterwick'shorse was the unconscious parent of infinite disaster. When Butterwickreturned and had kissed his wife and talked over his journey, thefollowing conversation ensued. Mrs. Butterwick said,

  "You know our horse, dearest?"

  "Yes, sweet; how is he getting along?"

  "Not so _very_ well; he has cost a great deal of money since you'vebeen away."

  "Indeed?"

  "Yes; besides his regular feed and Patrick's wages as hostler, I haveon hand unpaid bills to the amount of two thousand dollars on hisaccount."

  "Two thousand! Why, Emma, you amaze me! What on earth does it mean?"

  "I'll tell you the whole story, love. Just after you left he took asevere cold, and he coughed incessantly. You could hear him cough formiles. All the neighbors complained of it, and Mr. Potts, next door,was so mad that he shot at the horse four times. Patrick said it waswhooping-cough."

  "Whooping-cough, darling! Impossible! A horse _never_ haswhooping-cough."

  "Well, Patrick said so. And as I always give paregoric to the childrenwhen they cough, I concluded that it would be good for the horse, so Ibought a bucketful and gave it to him with sugar."

  "A bucketful of paregoric, my love! It was enough to kill him."

  "Patrick said that was a regular dose for a horse of sedentary habits;and it didn't kill him: it put him to sleep. You will be surprised,dear, to learn that the horse slept straight ahead for four weeks.Never woke up once. I was frightened about it, but Patrick told methat it was a sign of a good horse. He said that Dexter often sleptsix months on a stretch, and that once they took Goldsmith Maid toa race while she was sound asleep and she trotted a mile in 2:15, Ithink he said, without getting awake."

  "Patrick said that, did he?"

  "Yes; that was at the end of the second week. But as the horse didn'trouse up, Patrick said it couldn't be the paregoric that kept himasleep so long; and he came to me and asked me not to mention it, buthe had suspicions that Mr. Fogg had mesmerized him."

  "I never heard of a horse being mesmerized, dearest."

  "Neither did I, but Patrick said it was a common thing with the betterclass of horses. And when he kept on sleeping, dear, I got frightened,and Patrick consulted the horse-doctor, who came over with a galvanicbattery, which he said would wake the horse. They fixed the wires tohis leg and turned on the current. It did rouse him. He got up andkicked fourteen boards out of the side of the stable and then jumpedthe fence into Mr. Potts' yard, where he trod on a litter of youngpigs, kicked two cows to death and bit the tops off of eight appletrees. Patrick sai
d he tried to swallow Mrs. Potts' baby, but I didn'tsee him do that. Patrick may have exaggerated. I don't know. It seemshardly likely, does it, that the horse would actually try to eat achild?"

  "The man that sold him to me didn't mention that he was fond ofbabies."

  "But he got over the attack. The only effect was that the paregoric orthe electricity, or something, turned his hair all the wrong way, andhe looks the queerest you ever saw. Oh yes; it did seem to affect hisappetite, too. He appeared to be always hungry. He ate up the hay-rackand two sets of harness. And one night he broke out and nibbled offall the door-knobs on the back of the house."

  "Door-knobs, Emma? Has he shown a fondness for door-knobs?"

  "Yes; and he ate Louisa's hymn-book, too. She left it lying on thetable on the porch. Patrick said he knew a man in Ireland whose horsewould starve to death unless they fed him on Bibles. If he couldn'tget Bibles, he'd take Testaments; but unless he got Scriptures of somekind, he was utterly intractable."

  "I would like to have had a look at that horse, sweet."

  "So we got the horse-doctor again, and he said that what the pooranimal wanted was a hypodermic injection of morphia to calm hisnerves. He told Patrick to get a machine for placing the morphia underthe horse's skin. But Patrick said that he could do it without themachine. So one day he got the morphia, and began to bore a hole inthe horse with a gimlet."

  "A gimlet, Emma?"

  "An ordinary gimlet. But it seemed unpleasant to the horse, and so hekicked Patrick through the partition, breaking three of his ribs. ThenI got the doctor to perform the operation properly, and the horseafter that appeared right well, excepting that Patrick said that hehad suddenly acquired an extraordinary propensity for standing on hishead."

  "He is the first horse that ever wanted to do that, love."

  "Patrick said not. He told me about a man he worked for in Oshkosh whohad a team of mules which always stood on their heads when they werenot at work. He said all the mules in Oshkosh did. So Patrick tied aheavy stone to our horse's tail to Balance him and keep him straight.And this worked to a charm until I took the horse to church oneSunday, when, while a crowd stood round him looking at him, he swunghis tail around and brained six boys with the stone."

  "Brained them, love?"

  "Well, I didn't see them myself, but Patrick told me, when I came outof church, that they were as good as dead. And he said he rememberedthat that Oshkosh man used to coax his mules to stand on their legs byletting them hear music. It soothed them, he said. And so Patrick gota friend to come around and sit in the stall and calm our horse byplaying on the accordion."

  "Did it make him calmer?"

  "It seemed to at first; but one day Patrick undertook to bleed him forthe blind staggers, and he must have cut the horse in the wrong place,for the poor brute fell over on the accordion person and died, nearlykilling the musician."

  "The horse is dead, then? Where is the bill?"

  "I'll read it to you:

  THE BILL.

  Horse-doctor's fees $125 50 Paregoric for cough 80 00 Galvanic battery 10 00 Repairing stable 12 25 Potts' cow, pigs, apple trees and baby 251 00 Damage to door-knobs, etc. 175 00 Louisa's hymn-book 25 Gimlet and injections 15 00 Repairing Patrick's ribs 145 00 Music on accordion 21 00 Damages to player 184 00 Burying six boys 995 00 --------- $2,014 00

  "That is all, love, is it?"

  "Yes."

  Then Mr. Butterwick folded the bill up and went out into the back yardto think. Subsequently, he told me that he had concluded to repudiatethe unpaid portions of the bill, and then to try to purchase a betterhorse. He said he had heard that Mr. Keyser, a farmer over in LowerMerion, had a horse that he wanted to sell, and he asked me to go overthere with him to see about it. I agreed to do so.

  When we reached the place, Mr. Keyser asked us into the parlor, andwhile we were sitting there we heard Mrs. Keyser in the dining-room,adjoining, busy preparing supper. Keyser would not sell his horse, buthe was quite sociable, and after some conversation, he said,

  "Gentlemen, in 1847 I owned a hoss that never seen his equal in thisState. And that hoss once did the most extr'ordinary thing thatwas ever done by an animal. One day I had him out, down yer by thecreek--"

  Here Mrs. Keyser opened the door and exclaimed, shrilly,

  "Keyser, if you want any supper, you'd better get me some kin'lin-woodpretty quick."

  Then Keyser turned to us and said, "Excuse me for a few moments,gentlemen, if you please."

  A moment later we heard him splitting wood in the cellar beneath, andindulging in some very hard language with his soft pedal down, Mrs.Keyser being the object of his objurgations. After a while he cameinto the parlor again, took his seat, wiped the moisture from hisbrow, put his handkerchief in his hat, his hat on the floor, andresumed:

  "As I was sayin', gentlemen, one day I had that hoss down yer by thecreek; it was in '47 or '48, I most forget which. But, howsomedever, Itook him down yer by the creek, and I was jest about to--"

  _Mrs. Keyser_ (opening the door suddenly). "You, Keyser! there's not adrop of water in the kitchen, and unless some's drawed there'll be nosupper in this house _this_ night, now mind _me_!"

  _Keyser_ (with a look of pain upon his face). "Well, well! this is toobad! too bad! Gentlemen, just wait half a minute. I'll be right back.The old woman's rarin' 'round, and she won't wait."

  Then we heard Keyser at work at the well-bucket; and looking out theback window, we saw him bringing in a pail of water. On his way heencountered a dog, and in order to give his pent-up feelings adequateexpression, he kicked the animal clear over the fence. Presently hecame into the parlor, mopped his forehead, and began again.

  _Keyser_. "As I was sayin', that hoss was perfeckly astonishin'. Onthe day of which I was speakin'. I was ridin' him down yer by thecreek, clost by the corn-field, and I was jest about to wade him in,when, all of a suddent-like, he--"

  _Mrs. Keyser_ (at the door, and with her voice pitched at a high key)."ARE you goin' to fetch that ham from the smoke-house, or ARE yougoin' to set there jabberin' and go without your supper? If that hamisn't here in short order, I'll know the reason why. You hear me?"

  _Keyser_ (his face red and his manner excited). "_Gra_-SHUS! If thisisn't--Well, well! this just lays over all the--Pshaw! Mr. Butterwick,if you'll hold on for a second, I'll be with you agin. I'll be rightback."

  Then we heard Keyser slam open the smokehouse door, and presently heemerged with a ham, which he carried in one hand, while with the otherhe made a fist, which he shook threateningly at the kitchen door, asif to menace Mrs. Keyser, who couldn't see him.

  Again he entered the parlor, smelling of smoke and ham, and, crossinghis legs, he continued.

  _Keyser_ "Excuse these little interruptions; the old woman's kindersing'ler, and you've got to humor her to live in peace with her. Well,sir, as I said, I rode that extr'ordinary hoss down yer by the creekon that day to which I am referring and after passin' the cornfield Iwas goin' to wade him into the creek; just then, all of a, suddent,what should that hoss do but--"

  _Mrs. Keyser_ (at the door again). "Keyser, you lazy vagabone! Whydon't you 'tend to milkin' them cows? Not one mossel of supper do youput in your mouth this night unless you do the milkin' right off. Yousha'n't touch a crust, or my name's not Emeline Keyser!"

  Then Keyser leaped to his feet in a perfect frenzy of rage and hurledthe chair at Mrs. Keyser; whereupon she seized the poker and cametoward him with savage earnestness. Then we adjourned to the frontyard suddenly; and as Butterwick and I got into the carriage to gohome, Keyser, with a humble expression in his eyes, said:

  "Gentlemen, I'll tell you that hoss story another time, when the oldwoman's calmer. Good-day." />
  I am going to ask him to write it out. I am anxious to know what thathorse did down at the creek.

  Butterwick subsequently bought another horse from a friend of his inthe city, but the animal developed eccentricities of such a remarkablecharacter that he became unpopular. Butterwick, in explaining thesubject to me, said,

  "I was surprised to find, when I drove him out for the first time,that he had an irresistible propensity to back. He seemed to beimpressed with a conviction that nature had put his hind legs infront, and that he could see with his tail; and whenever I attemptedto start him, he always proceeded backward until I whipped himsavagely, and then he would go in a proper manner, but suddenly, andwith the air of a horse who had a conviction that there was a lunaticin the carriage who didn't know what he was about. One day, while wewere coming down the street, this theory became so strong that hesuddenly stopped and backed the carriage through the plate-glasswindow of Mackey's drug-store. After that I always hitched him upwith his head toward the carriage, and then he seemed to feel bettercontented, only sometimes he became too sociable, and used to put hishead over the dasher and try to chew my legs or to eat the lap-cover.

  "Besides, the peculiar arrangement of the animal excited unpleasantremark when I drove out; and when I wanted to stop and would hitch himby the tail to a post, he had a very disagreeable way of reaching outwith his hind legs and sweeping the sidewalk whenever he saw anybodythat he felt as if he would like to kick.

  "He was not much of a saddle-horse; not that he would attempt to throwhis rider, but whenever a saddle was put on him it made his back itch,and he would always insist upon rubbing it against the first tree orfence or corner of a house that he came to; and if he could bark therider's leg, he seemed to be better contented. The last time I rodehim was upon the day of Mr. Johnson's wedding. I had on my best suit,and on the way to the festival there was a creek to be forded. Whenthe horse got into the middle of it, he took a drink, and then lookedaround at the scenery. Then he took another drink, and gazed again atthe prospect. Then he suddenly felt tired and lay down in the water.By the time he was sufficiently rested I was ready to go home.

  MR. BUTTERWICK'S HORSE LIES DOWN]

  "The next day he was taken sick. Patrick said it was the epizooty, andhe mixed him up some turpentine in a bucket of warm feed. That nightthe horse had spasms, and kicked four of the best boards out of theside of the stable. Jones said that horse hadn't the epizooty, butthe botts, and that the turpentine ought to have been rubbed on theoutside of him instead of going into his stomach. So we rubbed himwith turpentine, and next morning he hadn't a hair on his body.

  "Colonel Coffin told me that if I wanted to know what really ailedthat horse he would tell me. It was glanders, and if he wasn't bled hewould die. So the colonel bled him for me. We took away a tubful, andthe horse thinned down so that his ribs made him look as if he hadswallowed a flour-barrel.

  "Then I sent for the horse-doctor, and he said there was nothing thematter with the horse but heaves, and he left some medicine 'to patchup his wind.' The result was that the horse coughed for two days as ifhe had gone into galloping consumption, and between two of thecoughs he kicked the hired man through the partition and bit ourblack-and-tan terrier in half.

  "I thought perhaps a little exercise might improve his health, so Idrove him out one day, and he proceeded in such a peculiar manner thatI was afraid he might suddenly come apart and fall to pieces. When wereached the top of White House hill, which is very steep by the sideof the road, he stopped, gave a sort of shudder, coughed a couple oftimes, kicked a fly off his side with his hind leg, and then lay downand calmly rolled over the bank. I got out of the carriage before hefell, and I watched him pitch clear down to the valley beneath, withthe vehicle dragging after him. When we got to him he was dead, andthe man at the farm-house close by said he had the blind staggers.

  "I sold him for eight dollars to a man who wanted to make him up intoknife-handles and suspender-buttons; and since then we have walked.I hardly think I shall buy another horse. My luck doesn't seem goodenough when I make ventures of that kind."