“No, suh!” the junk-dealer said, with emphasis, “I awready done got me a good mule fer my deliv’ry hoss, ‘n’at ole Whitey hoss ain’ wuff no fo’ dollah nohow! I ‘uz a fool when I talk ‘bout th’owin’ money roun’ that a-way. I know what YOU up to, Abalene. Man come by here li’l bit ago tole me all ‘bout white man try to ‘rest you, ovah on the avvynoo. Yessuh; he say white man goin’ to git you yit an’ th’ow you in jail ‘count o’ Whitey. White man tryin’ to fine out who you IS. He say, nemmine, he’ll know Whitey ag’in, even if he don’ know you! He say he ketch you by the hoss; so you come roun’ tryin’ fix me up with Whitey so white man grab me, th’ow ME in ‘at jail. G’on ‘way f’um hyuh, you Abalene! You cain’ sell an’ you cain’ give Whitey to no cullud man ‘n ’is town. You go an’ drowned ‘at ole hoss, ‘cause you sutny goin’ to jail if you git ketched drivin’ him.”
The substance of this advice seemed good to Abalene, especially as the seventeen dollars and sixty cents in his pocket lent sweet colours to life out of jail at this time. At dusk he led Whitey to a broad common at the edge of town, and spoke to him finally.
“G’on ‘bout you biz’nis,” said Abalene; “you ain’ MY hoss. Don’ look roun’at me, ‘cause I ain’t got no ‘quaintance wif you. I’m a man o’ money, an’ I got my own frien’s; I’m a-lookin’ fer bigger cities, hoss. You got you biz’nis an’ I got mine. Mista’ Hoss, good-night!”
Whitey found a little frosted grass upon the common and remained there all night. In the morning he sought the shed where Abalene had kept him; but that was across the large and busy town, and Whitey was hopelessly lost. He had but one eye, a feeble one, and his legs were not to be depended upon; but he managed to cover a great deal of ground, to have many painful little adventures, and to get monstrously hungry and thirsty before he happened to look in upon Penrod and Sam.
When the two boys chased him up the alley they had no intention to cause pain; they had no intention at all. They were no more cruel than Duke, Penrod’s little old dog, who followed his own instincts, and, making his appearance hastily through a hole in the back fence, joined the pursuit with sound and fury. A boy will nearly always run after anything that is running, and his first impulse is to throw a stone at it. This is a survival of primeval man, who must take every chance to get his dinner. So, when Penrod and Sam drove the hapless Whitey up the alley, they were really responding to an impulse thousands and thousands of years old — an impulse founded upon the primordial observation that whatever runs is likely to prove edible. Penrod and Sam were not “bad”; they were never that. They were something that was not their fault; they were historic.
At the next corner Whitey turned to the right into the cross-street; thence, turning to the right again and still warmly pursued, he zigzagged down a main thoroughfare until he reached another cross-street, which ran alongside the Schofields’ yard and brought him to the foot of the alley he had left behind in his flight. He entered the alley, and there his dim eye fell upon the open door he had previously investigated. No memory of it remained; but the place had a look associated in his mind with hay, and, as Sam and Penrod turned the corner of the alley in panting yet still vociferous pursuit, Whitey stumbled up the inclined platform before the open doors, staggered thunderously across the carriage-house and through another open door into a stall, an apartment vacant since the occupancy of Mr. Schofield’s last horse, now several years deceased.
CHAPTER VIII. SALVAGE
THE TWO BOYS shrieked with excitement as they beheld the coincidence of this strange return. They burst into the stable, making almost as much noise as Duke, who had become frantic at the invasion. Sam laid hands upon a rake.
“You get out o’ there, you ole horse, you!” he bellowed. “I ain’t afraid to drive him out. I—”
“WAIT a minute!” Penrod shouted. “Wait till I—”
Sam was manfully preparing to enter the stall.
“You hold the doors open,” he commanded, “so’s they won’t blow shut and keep him in here. I’m goin’ to hit him—”
“Quee-YUT!” Penrod shouted, grasping the handle of the rake so that Sam could not use it. “Wait a MINUTE, can’t you?” He turned with ferocious voice and gestures upon Duke. “DUKE!” And Duke, in spite of his excitement, was so impressed that he prostrated himself in silence, and then unobtrusively withdrew from the stable. Penrod ran to the alley doors and closed them.
“My gracious!” Sam protested. “What you goin’ to do?”
“I’m goin’ to keep this horse,” said Penrod, whose face showed the strain of a great idea.
“What FOR?”
“For the reward,” said Penrod simply.
Sam sat down in the wheelbarrow and stared at his friend almost with awe.
“My gracious,” he said, “I never thought o’ that! How — how much do you think we’ll get, Penrod?”
Sam’s thus admitting himself to a full partnership in the enterprise met no objection from Penrod, who was absorbed in the contemplation of Whitey.
“Well,” he said judicially, “we might get more and we might get less.”
Sam rose and joined his friend in the doorway opening upon the two stalls. Whitey had preempted the nearer, and was hungrily nuzzling the old frayed hollows in the manger.
“Maybe a hunderd dollars — or sumpthing?” Sam asked in a low voice.
Penrod maintained his composure and repeated the newfound expression that had sounded well to him a moment before. He recognized it as a symbol of the non — committal attitude that makes people looked up to. “Well” — he made it slow, and frowned— “we might get more and we might get less.”
“More’n a hunderd DOLLARS?” Sam gasped.
“Well,” said Penrod, “we might get more and we might get less.” This time, however, he felt the need of adding something. He put a question in an indulgent tone, as though he were inquiring, not to add to his own information but to discover the extent of Sam’s. “How much do you think horses are worth, anyway?”
“I don’t know,” Sam said frankly, and, unconsciously, he added, “They might be more and they might be less.”
“Well, when our ole horse died,” Penrod said, “Papa said he wouldn’t taken five hunderd dollars for him. That’s how much HORSES are worth!”
“My gracious!” Sam exclaimed. Then he had a practical afterthought. “But maybe he was a better horse than this’n. What colour was he?”
“He was bay. Looky here, Sam” — and now Penrod’s manner changed from the superior to the eager— “you look what kind of horses they have in a circus, and you bet a circus has the BEST horses, don’t it? Well, what kind of horses do they have in a circus? They have some black and white ones; but the best they have are white all over. Well, what kind of a horse is this we got here? He’s perty near white right now, and I bet if we washed him off and got him fixed up nice he WOULD be white. Well, a bay horse is worth five hunderd dollars, because that’s what Papa said, and this horse—”
Sam interrupted rather timidly.
“He — he’s awful bony, Penrod. You don’t guess they’d make any—”
Penrod laughed contemptuously.
“Bony! All he needs is a little food and he’ll fill right up and look good as ever. You don’t know much about horses, Sam, I expect. Why, OUR ole horse—”
“Do you expect he’s hungry now?” asked Sam, staring at Whitey.
“Let’s try him,” said Penrod. “Horses like hay and oats the best; but they’ll eat most anything.”
“I guess they will. He’s tryin’ to eat that manger up right now, and I bet it ain’t good for him.”
“Come on,” said Penrod, closing the door that gave entrance to the stalls. “We got to get this horse some drinkin’-water and some good food.”
They tried Whitey’s appetite first with an autumnal branch that they wrenched from a hardy maple in the yard. They had seen horses nibble leaves, and they expected Whitey to nibble the leaves of this branch
; but his ravenous condition did not allow him time for cool discriminations. Sam poked the branch at him from the passageway, and Whitey, after one backward movement of alarm, seized it venomously.
“Here! You stop that!” Sam shouted. “You stop that, you ole horse, you!”
“What’s the matter?” called Penrod from the hydrant, where he was filling a bucket. “What’s he doin’ now?”
“Doin’! He’s eatin’ the wood part, too! He’s chewin’ up sticks as big as baseball bats! He’s crazy!”
Penrod rushed to see this sight, and stood aghast.
“Take it away from him, Sam!” he commanded sharply.
“Go on, take it away from him yourself!” was the prompt retort of his comrade.
“You had no biz’nuss to give it to him,” said Penrod. “Anybody with any sense ought to know it’d make him sick. What’d you want to go and give it to him for?”
“Well, you didn’t say not to.”
“Well, what if I didn’t? I never said I did, did I? You go on in that stall and take it away from him.”
“YES, I will!” Sam returned bitterly. Then, as Whitey had dragged the remains of the branch from the manger to the floor of the stall, Sam scrambled to the top of the manger and looked over. “There ain’t much left to TAKE away! He’s swallered it all except some splinters. Better give him the water to try and wash it down with.” And, as Penrod complied, “My gracious, look at that horse DRINK!”
They gave Whitey four buckets of water, and then debated the question of nourishment. Obviously, this horse could not be trusted with branches, and, after getting their knees black and their backs sodden, they gave up trying to pull enough grass to sustain him. Then Penrod remembered that horses like apples, both “cooking-apples” and “eating-apples”, and Sam mentioned the fact that every autumn his father received a barrel of “cooking-apples” from a cousin who owned a farm. That barrel was in the Williams’ cellar now, and the cellar was providentially supplied with “outside doors,” so that it could be visited without going through the house. Sam and Penrod set forth for the cellar.
They returned to the stable bulging, and, after a discussion of Whitey’s digestion (Sam claiming that eating the core and seeds, as Whitey did, would grow trees in his inside) they went back to the cellar for supplies again — and again. They made six trips, carrying each time a capacity cargo of apples, and still Whitey ate in a famished manner. They were afraid to take more apples from the barrel, which began to show conspicuously the result of their raids, wherefore Penrod made an unostentatious visit to the cellar of his own house. From the inside he opened a window and passed vegetables out to Sam, who placed them in a bucket and carried them hurriedly to the stable, while Penrod returned in a casual manner through the house. Of his sang-froid under a great strain it is sufficient to relate that, in the kitchen, he said suddenly to Della, the cook, “Oh, look behind you!” and by the time Della discovered that there was nothing unusual behind her, Penrod was gone, and a loaf of bread from the kitchen table was gone with him.
Whitey now ate nine turnips, two heads of lettuce, one cabbage, eleven raw potatoes and the loaf of bread. He ate the loaf of bread last and he was a long time about it; so the boys came to a not unreasonable conclusion.
“Well, sir, I guess we got him filled up at last!” said Penrod. “I bet he wouldn’t eat a saucer of ice-cream now, if we’d give it to him!”
“He looks better to me,” said Sam, staring critically at Whitey. “I think he’s kind of begun to fill out some. I expect he must like us, Penrod; we been doin’ a good deal for this horse.”
“Well, we got to keep it up,” Penrod insisted rather pompously. “Long as I got charge o’ this horse, he’s goin’ to get good treatment.”
“What we better do now, Penrod?”
Penrod took on the outward signs of deep thought.
“Well, there’s plenty to DO, all right. I got to think.”
Sam made several suggestions, which Penrod — maintaining his air of preoccupation — dismissed with mere gestures.
“Oh, I know!” Sam cried finally. “We ought to wash him so’s he’ll look whiter’n what he does now. We can turn the hose on him across the manger.”
“No; not yet,” Penrod said. “It’s too soon after his meal. You ought to know that yourself. What we got to do is to make up a bed for him — if he wants to lay down or anything.”
“Make up a what for him?” Sam echoed, dumfounded. “What you talkin’ about? How can—”
“Sawdust,” Penrod said. “That’s the way the horse we used to have used to have it. We’ll make this horse’s bed in the other stall, and then he can go in there and lay down whenever he wants to.”
“How we goin’ to do it?”
“Look, Sam; there’s the hole into the sawdust-box! All you got to do is walk in there with the shovel, stick the shovel in the hole till it gets full of sawdust, and then sprinkle it around on the empty stall.”
“All I got to do!” Sam cried. “What are you goin’ to do?”
“I’m goin’ to be right here,” Penrod answered reassuringly. “He won’t kick or anything, and it isn’t goin’ to take you half a second to slip around behind him to the other stall.”
“What makes you think he won’t kick?”
“Well, I KNOW he won’t, and, besides, you could hit him with the shovel if he tried to. Anyhow, I’ll be right here, won’t I?”
“I don’t care where you are,” Sam said earnestly. “What difference would that make if he ki—”
“Why, you were goin’ right in the stall,” Penrod reminded him. “When he first came in, you were goin’ to take the rake and—”
“I don’t care if I was,” Sam declared. “I was excited then.”
“Well, you can get excited now, can’t you?” his friend urged. “You can just as easy get—”
He was interrupted by a shout from Sam, who was keeping his eye upon Whitey throughout the discussion.
“Look! Looky there!” And undoubtedly renewing his excitement, Sam pointed at the long, gaunt head beyond the manger. It was disappearing from view. “Look!” Sam shouted. “He’s layin’ down!”
“Well, then,” said Penrod, “I guess he’s goin’ to take a nap. If he wants to lay down without waitin’ for us to get the sawdust fixed for him, that’s his lookout, not ours.”
On the contrary, Sam perceived a favourable opportunity for action.
“I just as soon go and make his bed up while he’s layin’ down,” he volunteered. “You climb up on the manger and watch him, Penrod, and I’ll sneak in the other stall and fix it all up nice for him, so’s he can go in there any time when he wakes up, and lay down again, or anything; and if he starts to get up, you holler and I’ll jump out over the other manger.”
Accordingly, Penrod established himself in a position to observe the recumbent figure. Whitey’s breathing was rather laboured but regular, and, as Sam remarked, he looked “better”, even in his slumber. It is not to be doubted that although Whitey was suffering from a light attack of colic his feelings were in the main those of contentment. After trouble, he was solaced; after exposure, he was sheltered; after hunger and thirst, he was fed and watered. He slept.
The noon whistles blew before Sam’s task was finished; but by the time he departed for lunch there was made a bed of such quality that Whitey must needs have been a born fault-finder if he complained of it. The friends parted, each urging the other to be prompt in returning; but Penrod got into threatening difficulties as soon as he entered the house.
CHAPTER IX. REWARD OF MERIT
“PENROD,” SAID HIS mother, “what did you do with that loaf of bread Della says you took from the table?”
“Ma’am? WHAT loaf o’ bread?”
“I believe I can’t let you go outdoors this afternoon,” Mrs. Schofield said severely. “If you were hungry, you know perfectly well all you had to do was to—”
“But I wasn’t hungry; I—”
“You can explain later,” Mrs. Schofield said. “You’ll have all afternoon.”
Penrod’s heart grew cold.
“I CAN’T stay in,” he protested. “I’ve asked Sam Williams to come over.”
“I’ll telephone Mrs. Williams.”
“Mamma!” Penrod’s voice became agonized. “I HAD to give that bread to a — to a poor ole man. He was starving and so were his children and his wife. They were all just STARVING — and they couldn’t wait while I took time to come and ask you, Mamma. I got to GO outdoors this afternoon. I GOT to! Sam’s—”
She relented.
In the carriage-house, half an hour later, Penrod gave an account of the episode.
“Where’d we been, I’d just like to know,” he concluded, “if I hadn’t got out here this afternoon?”
“Well, I guess I could managed him all right,” Sam said. “I was in the passageway, a minute ago, takin’ a look at him. He’s standin’ up again. I expect he wants more to eat.”
“Well, we got to fix about that,” said Penrod. “But what I mean — if I’d had to stay in the house, where would we been about the most important thing in the whole biz’nuss?”
“What you talkin’ about?”
“Well, why can’t you wait till I tell you?” Penrod’s tone had become peevish. For that matter, so had Sam’s; they were developing one of the little differences, or quarrels, that composed the very texture of their friendship.
“Well, why don’t you tell me, then?”
“Well, how can I?” Penrod demanded. “You keep talkin’ every minute.”
“I’m not talkin’ NOW, am I?” Sam protested. “You can tell me NOW, can’t you? I’m not talk—”
“You are, too!” Penrod shouted. “You talk all the time! You—”
Collected Works of Booth Tarkington Page 193