“Funny thing,” Dad put in, “how some men have a knack of making money at other men’s expense. Everything Jacob Earl touches seems to mint money for him—money that comes out of someone else’s pocket. Like that gravel land he got from John Wiggins. I’d like to see the process reversed sometime.”
“But for real miserliness”—that was Aunt Anna, indignant—“Luke Hawks takes all the prizes. I’ve seen him come into the Fair-Square store to buy things for his children, and the trouble he had letting go his money, you’d have thought it stuck to his fingers!”
“It’s a question,” Dad said, “which is worse, miserliness or shiftlessness. Miserliness, I suppose, because most shiftless people are at least good-hearted. Like Henry Jones. Henry wishes for more things and does less to get them than any man in Christendom. If wishes were horses, Henry would have the biggest herd this side of the Mississippi.”
“Well, there are some nice people in Locustville,” Sis broke into the conversation. “I don’t care what that old gossip Miss Peters says, or that stuck-up Mrs. Norton either; I think Miss Avery, my English and gym teacher, is swell. She isn’t awful pretty, but she’s nice.
“There’s little silver bells in her voice when she talks, and if that Bill Morrow whose dad owns the implement factory, and who takes time off to coach the football team, wasn’t a dope, he’d have fallen for her long ago. She’s crazy about him, but too proud to show it, and that silly Betty Norton has made him think he’s wonderful by playing up to him all the time.”
“If he marries Betty,” Aunt Anna said, “the town won’t be able to hold Mrs. Norton anymore. She’s already so puffed up with being the wife of the bank president and the leader of the town’s social life, she’d just swell up a little more and float away like a balloon if she got the Morrow Implement Company for a son-in-law.”
Everybody laughed, and the conversation slowly died away.
Mom mentioned how much she disliked that two-faced Minerva Benson who was so nice to people’s faces and worked against them behind their backs.
Sis said that Mr. Wiggins, who ran the bookstore, was a nice little man who ought to marry Miss Wilson, the dressmaker, a plain little woman who would be as pretty as a picture if she looked the way she was.
But he never would, Sis said, because he hadn’t any money and would be ashamed to ask a woman to marry him when he couldn’t even earn his own living.
Then they went back to bridge. Danny was feeling sort of weak and shaky, so he hurried back to bed before Mom could catch him. He crawled in and pulled the blankets up over him, and then his hand reached under the pillow and pulled out the funny thing he’d found in the old chest where he kept his games and skates and things.
It had been wrapped in a soft piece of leather, and he had found it in a little space behind one of the drawers. There was a name inked on the leather, Jonas Norcross. Dad’s grandfather had been named Jonas, so it might have been originally his.
What the thing was was a little pointed piece of ivory, sharp at the tip and round at the bottom, as if it had been sawed off the very end of an elephant’s tusk.
Only there was a fine spiral line in it, like in a snail’s shell, that made Danny think maybe it hadn’t come from an elephant, but from an animal he had seen in a book once—an animal like a horse, with one long horn over its nose. He couldn’t remember the name.
It was all yellow with age, and on the bottom was carved a funny mark, all cross lines, very intricate. Maybe it was Chinese writing. Jonas Norcross had been captain of a clipper ship in the China trade, so maybe it might have come all the way from China.
Lying in bed, Danny held the bit of ivory in his hand. It gave out a warmth to his fingers that was nice. Holding it tight, he thought of a picture in his book about King Arthur’s Round Table—a picture of Queen Guinevere of the golden hair. Probably it was a picture like that Sis had meant Miss Wilson ought to be pretty as.
Grown-ups’ talk wasn’t always easy to understand, the way they said things that weren’t so.
Danny yawned. Gee, though, it would be awful funny—He yawned again, and the weight of drowsiness descending on him closed his eyes. But not before one last thought had floated through his mind.
As it came to him, a queer little breeze seemed to spring up in the room. It fluttered the curtains and rattled the window shade. For just a second Danny felt almost as if somebody was in the room with him. Then it was gone, and smiling at his amusing thought, Danny slept.
II
Henry Jones woke that morning with the smell of frying bacon in his nostrils. He yawned and stretched, comfortably. There was a clock on the bureau the other side of the room, but it was too much trouble to look at it.
He looked at where the sunshine, coming in the window, touched the carpet. That told him it was just onto nine.
Downstairs pans were rattling. Martha was up and about, long ago. And just about ready to get impatient with him for lingering in bed.
“Ho huuuum!” Henry yawned, and pushed down the covers. “I wish I was up an’ dressed aw-ready.”
As if it were an echo to his yawn, a shrill whickering sound reached him from the direction of his large, untidy backyard. Disregarding it, Henry slid into his trousers and shirt, his socks and shoes, put on a tie, combed his hair casually, and ambled down to the dining room.
“Well!” his wife, Martha, commented tartly, appearing in the doorway with a platter in her hands as he slumped down into his chair. “It’s after nine. If you’re going to look for work today, you should have been started long ago!”
Henry shook his head dubiously as she set the bacon and eggs in front of him.
“I dunno if I ought to go tramping around today,” he muttered. “Don’t feel so well. Mmm, that looks good. But I kind of wish we could have sausage oncet in a while.”
From the rear yard came another high whinny that went unnoticed.
“Sausage is expensive,” Martha told him. “When you get an honest job, maybe we can afford some.”
“There’s Hawks,” Henry remarked, with interest, peering out the front window as a lean, long-faced man strode past the house, with a pleasant but shabbily-dressed little woman trotting meekly at his side. “Guess Emily has talked him into laying out some money for new things for the kids at last. It’s only about once a year she gets him to loosen up.”
“And then you’d think, to look at him, he was dying,” his wife commented, “just because he’s buying a couple of pairs of two-dollar shoes for two as nice youngsters as ever lived. He begrudges them every mouthful they eat, almost.”
“Still,” Henry said, wagging his head wisely, “I wish I had the money he has stacked away.”
From the rear yard came a sound of galloping hooves. Martha was too intent on scolding Henry to notice it.
“Wish, wish, wish!” she stormed. “But never work, work, work! Oh, Henry, you’re the most exasperating man alive!”
“Martha, I’m not worthy of you,” Henry sighed. “I wish you had a better husband. I mean it.”
This time the whinnying behind the house was a concerted squeal from many throats, too loud to go unnoticed. Henry’s buxom wife started, looked puzzled, and hurried out to the kitchen. A moment later her screech reached Henry’s ears.
“Henry! The backyard’s full of horses! Plunging and kicking all over the place!”
The news was startling enough to overcome Henry’s early-morning lethargy. He joined his wife at the kitchen window and stared with popping eyes at the big rear yard.
It was full—anyway, it seemed full—of animals. Martha had called them horses. They weren’t exactly horses. But they weren’t ponies either. They were too small to be the one and too big to be the other. And they were covered with longish hair, had wild flowing manes, and looked strong and savage enough to lick their weight in tigers.
“Well, I’ll be deuced!” Henry exclaimed, his round countenance vastly perplexed. “I wish I knew where those critters came from.”
/>
“Henry!” Martha wailed, clutching his arm. “Now there’s five!”
There had been four of them, trotting about the yard, nosing at the wreck of the car Henry had once driven, thumping with their hooves the board fence that penned them in. But now there were, indeed, five.
“G-gosh!” Henry gulped, his Adam’s apple working up and down. “We must have counted wrong. Now how do you suppose they got in there?”
“But what kind of horses are they, Henry?” Martha asked, holding to his arm still, as if for protection, in a way she hadn’t for years. “And who do you suppose they belong to?
Henry put an arm around Martha’s plump waist and applied reassuring pressure.
“I wish I knew, Martha,” he muttered, “I wish I knew.”
“Henry!” There was real fright in his wife’s voice. “Now there’s six!”
“Seven,” Henry corrected weakly. “The other two just—just sort of appeared.”
Together they gazed at the seven shaggy ponies that were trotting restlessly about the yard, nosing at the fence as if seeking escape from the limited space.
No more appeared; and seeing the number remain stable, Henry and Martha gained more self-possession.
“Henry,” his wife said with severity, as if somehow blaming him, “there’s something queer happening. Nobody ever saw horses like those in Indiana before.”
“Maybe they belong to a circus,” Henry suggested, staring in fascination at the seven uncouth beasts.
“Maybe they belong to us!”
“Us?” Henry’s jaw dropped. “How could they belong to us?”
“Henry,” his wife told him, “you’ve got to go out and see if they’re branded. I remember reading anybody can claim a wild horse if it hasn’t been branded. And those are wild horses if I ever saw any.”
Of course, Martha never had seen any wild horses, but her words sounded logical. Her husband, however, made no motion toward the back door.
“Listen,” he said, “Martha, you stay here and watch. Don’t let anybody into the yard. I’m going to get Jake Harrison, at the stable. He used to be a horse trader. He’ll know what those things are and if they belong to us, if anybody does.”
“All right, Henry,” his wife agreed—the first time he could remember her agreeing with him in, anyway, two years—“but hurry. Please do hurry.”
“I will!” Henry vowed; and without even snatching up his hat, he shot away.
Jake Harrison, the livery stable owner, came back with him unwillingly, half dragged in Henry’s excitement. But when he stood in the kitchen and stared out at the yard full of horses, his incredulity vanished.
“Good Lord!” he gasped. “Henry, where’d you get ’em?”
“Never mind that,” Henry told him. “Just tell me, what are they?”
“Mongolian ponies,” the lanky horse dealer informed him. “The exact kind of ponies old Genghis Khan’s men rode on when they conquered most of the known world. I’ve seen pictures of them in books. Imagine it! Mongolian ponies here in Locustville!”
“Well,” Martha asked, with withering scorn, “aren’t you going out to see if they’re branded? Or are you two men afraid of a lot of little ponies?”
“I guess they won’t hurt us,” the stable owner decided, “if we’re careful. Come on, Henry, let’s see if I’m still any good at lassoing. Mis’ Jones, can I use this hank of clothesline?”
Henry opened the kitchen door and followed Jake Harrison out into the yard. At their advent the seven—he was glad to see the number hadn’t changed in his absence—ponies stopped their restless trotting and lifted their heads to stare at the men.
Jake made a noose out of the clothesline and began to circle it above his head. The ponies snorted and reared, suspiciously. Picking the smallest one, the tall man let the noose go, and it settled over the creature’s thick neck.
The pony’s nostrils flared. It reared and beat the air with its unshod front hooves as the other six broke and scampered to the opposite end of the yard.
Jake Harrison drew the loop tight and approached the pony, making soothing sounds. It quieted, and as they came close let Jake put his hands on it.
“Yes, sir,” the stable owner exclaimed, “a real honest-to-Homer Mongolian pony. That long hair is to keep the cold out, up in the mountains of Tibet. Now let’s see if there’s any brand. None on its hide. Let’s see its hoof.”
The pony let him lift its left forefoot without protest, and Henry, bending close, let out a whoop.
“Look, Jake!” he yelled. “It’s branded! With my name! These critters are mine!”
Together they stared. Cut into the hard horn, in neat letters, was HENRY JONES.
Jake straightened.
“Yours, all right,” he agreed. “Now, Henry, stop making a mystery and tell me where these animals came from.”
Henry’s jubilance faded. He shook his head.
“Honest, Jake, I don’t know. I wish I did. . . . Look out!”
The tall man leaped back. Between them an eighth pony had appeared, so close that its flanks brushed against them.
“W-where—” Jake stuttered, backing away toward the door in the fence and fumbling for the catch. “Where—”
“That’s what I don’t know!” Henry joined him. “That’s what I wish—No, I don’t either! I don’t anything at all!”
The phantom pony that had appeared directly before them, wispy and tenuous as darkish smoke, promptly vanished.
Henry mopped his face.
“Did you see what I saw?” he asked; and Jake, swallowing hard, nodded.
“You st-started to wish for something, and it st-started to appear,” he gobbled, and thrust open the door in the board fence. “Let’s get out o’ here.”
“When I started to wish—Oh, Jiminy Crickets!” Henry groaned. “That’s how the others happened. When I wished. Do you suppose—Do you—”
Pale-faced, they stared at each other. Slowly the stableman nodded.
“Lord!” the ashen Henry whispered. “I never believed such a thing could happen. I wish now I’d never—”
This time the words weren’t fully out of his mouth before the ninth pony struck the earth with a sudden plop directly before them.
It was too much. Henry broke and ran, and Jake followed at his heels. The pony, interestedly, chased them. Its brothers, not to be left behind, streamed through the opening in the fence, whickering gleefully.
When Henry and Jake brought up, around the corner of the house, they were just in time to look back and see the last of the beasts trotting out into Main Street. Nine wicked whinnys cut through the morning quiet. Nine sets of small hooves pounded.
“They’re stampeding!” Henry shrilled. “Jake, we got to round ’em up before they do lots of damage. Oh, Jehoshaphat, I wish this hadn’t ever happened!”
Neighing raucously, the tenth pony kicked up its heels, throwing dirt in their faces, and set off at a gallop after the others.
III
About the time Henry Jones was running for Jake Harrison, Luke Hawks was fingering a boy’s woolen suit with lean, predatory digits.
“This be the cheapest?” he asked, and being assured that it was—all the clerks in Locustville knew better than to show him anything but the least expensive—nodded.
“I’ll take it,” he said, and grudgingly reached for his hip pocket.
“Don’t you think the material is kind of thin, Luke?” little Emily Hawks asked, a note of pleading in her voice. “Last winter Billy had colds all the time, and Ned—”
The man did not bother to answer. With the well-filled wallet in his left hand, he inserted thumb and forefinger and brought out a twenty-dollar bill.
“Here,” he said. “And I’ve got thirteen dollars forty cents coming.”
Taking the bill and starting to turn away, the clerk turned abruptly back. Luke Hawks had snatched the money from his hand.
“Is anything—” he began, and stopped. Testily the man was s
till holding out the note.
“Take it,” he snapped. “Don’t make me stand here waiting,”
“Yes, sir.” The clerk apologized, and took a firmer hold. But he could not take the bill from Luke Hawks. He pulled. Hawks’s hand jerked forward. Scowling, the lean man drew his hand back. The money came with it.
“What’s the matter, Luke?” Emily Hawks asked. Her husband favored her with a frown.
“Some glue on it, or something,” he muttered. “It stuck to my fingers. I’ll get another bill out, young man.”
He put the twenty back into his wallet—where it went easily enough—and drew out two tens. But neither would these leave his hand.
Luke Hawks was beginning to go a little pale. He transferred the notes to his left hand. But though his left hand could take them from his right, the clerk could take them from neither. Whenever he tugged at it, the money simply would not come loose. It stuck as close to Luke Hawks’s fingers as if it were part of his skin.
A red blush crept into the man’s cheeks. He could not meet his wife’s gaze.
“I—I dunno—” he muttered. “I’ll lay it down. You pick it up.”
Carefully he laid a ten dollar bill on the counter, spread his fingers wide, and lifted his hand. To his horror and fright, the bit of green paper came with it, adhering firmly to his fingertips.
“Luke Hawks,” his wife said sturdily, “it’s a judgment on you. The good Lord has put a curse on your money.”
“Hush!” Hawks warned, “Netty Peters has come in the store and is looking. She’ll hear you and go gabbing nonsense all—”
“It is not nonsense!” his wife stated. “It’s truth. Your money will not leave your fingers.”
Luke Hawks went deathly pale again. With a strangled curse, he snatched out all the money in his wallet and tried to throw it down on the counter. To his intense relief, one folded green slip fluttered down, though the rest remained in his hand.
“There!” he gasped. “It ain’t so! Boy, how much is that?”
F&SF BK UNICORNS VOL 2.indb Page 11