Born to Trot

by Marguerite Henry

  ‘And the ears!’ agreed the greatcoated gentleman, stifling a laugh, ‘long and pointed, like those of a donkey.’

  ‘His hips appear higher to me than his shoulders,’ Mister Toothill put in. ‘And his tail a mere switch.’

  Their words lashed on, cutting deeper and deeper.

  ‘Might make a chunk horse for hauling heavy loads,’ Mr. Doughty offered.

  Fat puffy hands and big-knuckled skinny ones felt all the way down the colt’s legs, felt of his hindquarters.

  ‘Cat hams!’ pronounced the banker.

  William Rysdyk caught his breath. His very own words snapping back at him!

  Now the men were laughing and joking, clapping each other on the back. ‘He couldn’t beat a calf in a mile and a half,’ said one.

  ‘“If the leaven’s no good,”’ Henry Spingler recited, ‘“the loaf won’t rise, and if the sire’s coarse, the colt’s likewise.”’

  The man with the handsome coat elbowed the ironmonger. ‘Apt to be a stumblebum,’ he roared in laughter. ‘Apt to trip over every molehill.’

  William Rysdyk let his gaze travel over the colt. To him he was all power and pride. Hips higher than shoulders? Yah, shure. To give speed. Switch tail? Yah, shure. Still a suckling he is. Give the little feller time. In every bone and fiber he saw strength and power. No weakness anywhere. He looked at the tiny star on the forehead, no bigger than a snowflake. He glanced now at the overdressed men, their diamond scarf pins, their gold buttons.

  ‘Ach!’ He clenched his fist. ‘In their looking glasses they should be looking! Needle legs and scrapbag bodies and darning-egg heads!’

  The colt, too, seemed annoyed by the talk. He leaned toward the men, his mouth opening now in a great cavernous yawn. In that simple gesture he dismissed them and their fribbling.

  When Mister Seely rejoined the group, the men sheared their words like women trimming off the extra crust from a pie.

  ‘He’s the son of Old Abdallah, all right,’ the banker said.

  ‘Yes, sir!’ the others agreed. ‘The son of Old Abdallah. No mistaking.’

  On the way back to the house the greatcoated man had a trifling accident. He caught his instep-strap on a tree root, and when it snagged free that august gentleman went flat on his buttons in the drainage ditch. He made quite a splash.

  It was fortunate for William Rysdyk that a blasting toot from the evening train coincided with the loud explosion of his laughter. ‘Who now is the stumblebum?’ he muttered to himself.

  Later, in the stackyard with the men gone, he was still chuckling over the incident. But as he stood atop the strawstack pitching down the straw, an idea fastened itself on his mind. Slowly, thoughtfully, he thrust the pitchfork into the stack, the tines going in deep.

  ‘Maybe,’ his eyes narrowed in thought, ‘there is maybe a scheme in the men. It’s maybe they think I tell Mister Seely so they buy the colt cheap.’

  The more he thought about it, the more the idea festered. The committee must have liked Hambletonian. ‘High on the legs means leggy,’ he kept saying as he finished his chores. ‘Leggy colt means speed. Yah! It now comes sharp to me. They make a donkey of Hambletonian for to buy him cheap.’

  After this visit whenever a stranger came to the Seely place, William Rysdyk was in a panic. He hid the colt and the mare in the spattered shade of the oak trees, tying them there so they couldn’t trot out and show bright bay against the green. Then he managed to work within earshot of the visitor. But his work was wasted. If he culled potatoes, he put the little ones with the big. If he split wood for the kitchen, it turned out to be kindling instead of stove wood. If he cleaned stalls, he threw out the clean straw instead of the soiled.

  Men did come to look at the colt. Some poked fun at the big ears and the Abdallah head. Others just looked and said little. It was these who worried William Rysdyk most. One night when he had finished his chores, he could stand it no longer.

  ‘I can’t hold it out!’ he told the colt. ‘Some way I got to buy you.’

  Sixteen

  WITHOUT turning his head, Gibson’s eyes darted around the room. Mike and Beaver were still deep in their books. Grubber was studying a half-finished gondola on his work table.

  Gibson glanced at his clock. Almost eleven. Soon the door would swing open and four lunch trays would come in, one atop another. If he read fast—another chapter, perhaps. Soundlessly he turned the page, and just that quickly crossed from one world to the other.

  8: Colt-at-Heel

  Before his courage petered away, William Rysdyk marched swiftly to the kitchen door of the Seely residence. His mind was made up! He washed his face and hands at the pump, dousing the cold water over his head, taking a great mouthful of it, then fountaining it over a dusty bed of catmint. With awkward fingers he smoothed his hair and combed his beard. He cleaned his boots on the scraper. Then, shivering in excitement, he presented himself at the door.

  ‘The gentleman is in?’ he asked the hired girl.

  Mehitabel Tiffet had a voice with a growl in it. ‘He ain’t done with his coffee,’ she said, eyeing him sharply.

  ‘I wait here by the well. I got to speak private with him.’

  As he waited, playing his finger along the coiled rope, he tried to plan what he would say. Why is it? he thought. With the animals in the fields, I feel myself big. To lift, no stones is too heavy. To dig, no ditches is too deep. But, ach, inside houses I shrink myself. Even my muscles weazen down little. To pea size they get.

  He squirmed, toeing his foot against the well, feeling small and green and young.

  The door opened and a hand flung out, holding a plate. ‘Leftovers!’ the voice of Mehitabel barked, ‘but they help stay the hunger.’

  William Rysdyk took the food. A gray slice of mutton had gone cold and tallowed to the plate. Beside it humped a cold potato. He tried to eat, but the tallow reminded him of the goose grease he used on the horses’ hoofs.

  Looking around and seeing no one in the gathering dusk, he put the plate at his feet. Then low in his throat, so Mehitabel would not hear, he called, ‘Come, kitling, kitling, kitling.’

  A barn cat streaked out from the shadows, followed by a parade of four little kittens with stove-poker tails. They maneuvered for position around the plate, then sharp white teeth went to work and four little penwiper tongues and one big one swabbed the plate clean.

  As Mehitabel’s footsteps came thudding to the door, William Rysdyk snatched up the plate, scattering the cats back into the shadows.

  ‘Kinder hungry, wasn’t ye?’ Mehitabel’s voice softened as she took the plate. ‘The mister—he is done with his coffee now. Has to have his three cups every night. Come in.’

  William Rysdyk walked quickly through the kitchen, his nostrils wrinkling at the smells of vinegar and mutton. He followed the direction flag of Mehitabel’s finger through a dark hallway to a brightly glowing room. He took one step across the threshold, then stood frozen in the doorway, like a rabbit cornered by a beam of light.

  A lamp burning with an uneven flame made a white pool on the desk, then flung great shadows on the wall. One of the shadows was Mister Seely winding the wag-on-the-wall clock, pulling down the weight cord.

  As William Rysdyk waited, hesitating, the youngest Seely boy brushed past him and burst into the room. ‘Father! Look at the pictures I made.’

  Mister Seely turned around, surprise in his look. ‘Oh,’ he said, spying William Rysdyk over the head of his son, ‘come to the light and see the pictures.’

  ‘What for pictures have you?’ the hired man asked the boy, with no question in his voice at all. How could he hold his mind on pictures? His eyes looked through them, seeing the colt instead, the big promise in him. A stallion grown. Muscles bulging. Veins big and branching like rivers on a map.

  Mister Seely duteously praised the pictures and dismissed the boy. ‘Now then.’ His eyes went to William Rysdyk’s as he settled himself comfortably in a chair by the desk. He picked up his pen,
fluting the feather with his thumb, and waited, smiling.

  ‘In your office-room, sir,’ William Rysdyk stammered, ‘I wouldn’t want to bother you.’

  ‘No bother, Rysdyk. Speak up.’

  But suddenly the man could not speak, nor even breathe. There was a tightness in his chest and the room seemed to be closing in on him. If he were only out of doors! ‘Can you, sir—can you once to the pasture lot come?’

  ‘Is anything wrong?’

  ‘No, no. Is everything fine.’

  ‘Then whatever it is, Rysdyk, say it here.’

  Say it here, say it here, the clock repeated. And then suddenly the tight feeling in his chest gave way and the words came tumbling out like water over a mill wheel.

  ‘The colt, sir!’ he cried. ‘The colt! Before comes another man to look, I should buy him!’

  ‘You? You? Buy him?’

  ‘Yah, sir. Who else?’ William Rysdyk nodded vehemently. ‘The committee, they make little of him. His ears. Donkey ears. I got donkey ears, too.’

  He came close to Mister Seely, placing one hand on the desk. ‘I was godoopt, ach, I mean baptized, here in America. I was godoopt for William of Orange, the same one where Orange County got its name. But I am a Dutchman. Of me everybody makes little. Of the colt, too.’ He took a deep breath, then blurted, ‘Is it fine with you if I buy?’

  Mister Seely’s gaze went to the ceiling. He found a box-elder bug in the splash of light and sat staring at the bug as if it got in the way of his thinking.

  ‘I make a question, sir,’ reminded William Rysdyk. ‘Couldn’t I got an answer?’

  The box-elder bug fell to the desk, Mister Seely’s eyes falling with it. ‘Where would you stable him?’ he asked.

  ‘My chicken shed, sir, what Mister Townsend give me, I going to fix up into a barn.’

  ‘And what are your plans for the colt?’

  ‘I drive him. And the wind, she whistles by our donkey ears. And we whistle by . . .’ William Rysdyk’s blue eyes danced with a sudden idea. ‘And we whistle by Mister Toothill and Mister Doughty and the man what looks like a snipe bird.’ He laughed deep in his throat.

  ‘What if the colt prove slow and sluggish?’

  ‘It couldn’t be.’

  ‘You expect both speed and stamina?’

  ‘How could it else? He is deep made in his heart place.’

  ‘Pull up a chair and sit down, Rysdyk. Let us ponder a moment.’

  The chair scraped across the carpet. William Rysdyk perched himself on the edge of it. ‘My mind is up-made,’ he said hoarsely. ‘The littler feller gets into me here, sir.’ He patted his linsey-woolsey shirt. ‘If he goes from the pasture lot . . .’ His eyes studied a crimson rose in the carpet.

  ‘What then?’

  ‘Then’—the hired man’s voice trembled and his beard quivered—‘I would like the meadowlark be. The meadowlark who comes back to her field and finds her nest and younkers plowed under by rough hands. Only,’ he sighed after a little silence, ‘the meadowlark could sing herself out of the pain. With me it only could stay inside here.’

  ‘Come, come, Rysdyk. I must admit I’ve been thinking of selling, but you are carrying your dreams too far.’

  There! He knew it! The boss was going to sell. William Rysdyk hurried his words. ‘I got a little money, sir, but you give no answer. Could I buy or couldn’t I buy?’

  Mister Seely let his mind go back to the gold pieces he had paid out for the crippled mare. He turned down the wick of the lamp as if his thoughts might show in his face. She might have a better colt in the future, he was thinking. Maybe one. Maybe two. The postmaster had already offered seventy-five dollars for her. As for the son of Old Abdallah, he might bring a hundred dollars, odd-looking as he was.

  He watched the box-elder bug swing up on his paper cutter. His thoughts went on to the drought, to the crops drying. There would be none of the little extras from New York this year. Only the necessaries.

  Aloud he said, ‘The winter will be lean.’

  ‘By my place I am already tucked in good, sir. Roots and apples in the cellar already. What matters it to eat beans of last year’s growth?’

  Mister Seely did not answer for a long time. ‘I would have to sell the mare, too,’ he said at last. ‘Ever since she came limping through the gate, Mistress Seely has been twitting me to sell her. Yes, they would both have to go. The mare with colt-at-heel.’

  William Rysdyk leaped to his feet. ‘By golly! Is better still! Mare-mom too!’ He mouthed the sound of the words, ‘Colt-at-heel, colt-at-heel.’ He began reaching into his pockets, but all he had in them, he knew, were three big copper pennies and a handkerchief, quite dirty.

  ‘I have alone but three coppers with me,’ he said, ‘but by my chicken shed in an old teapot I got twenty-five taler.’

  A smile of pity played about Mister Seely’s lips. ‘I could let you have one of the work horses for that,’ he said, ‘but for the mare and colt it would be one hundred and fifty dollars.’

  The house noises suddenly grew loud and distinct. A rocker creaking on a loose floorboard. Mice skittering in the walls. Against these little noises the hard metal dollars jangled in William Rysdyk’s head.

  ‘A hundred and fifty taler!’

  ‘For twenty-five dollars you could have the work horse, Rysdyk. He has perhaps fifteen good years left in him. Perhaps twenty.’

  The words were lost. A hundred and fifty taler! The hired man sighed deeply, then rose from his chair.

  ‘Rysdyk!’ Irritation showed in Mister Seely’s voice, but it was as if he were irritated with himself, too. ‘Rysdyk,’ he repeated, ‘you would be better off with the work horse. And I would be better off selling the pair to a pleasantly situated farmer. He could get one or two foals from the mare, and the colt would make him a good wagon horse.’

  Over and over William Rysdyk turned the coppers in his hand. ‘They look so few,’ he said, discouragement heavy in his voice. ‘Couldn’t you a little cheaper make it?’

  The annoyance in Mister Seely’s voice grew. ‘One hundred and twenty-five is my limit. If I sell at that figure, I am beetle-headed. If you buy at that figure, you are. The work horse, now . . .’

  ‘Better I go home, sir, and put the head on the pillow. After a sleep I know for sure.’

  In the morning William Rysdyk did know. It was sunup and the two men stood facing each other in the barnyard. Morning lay wet on the fence rails and on the leaves of the trees.

  ‘My mind, it is up-made, sir!’ William Rysdyk said with a resolute look in his eye. ‘Only one question I could want to ask.’

  Mister Seely waited.

  ‘The money it grows slow. With the wages of ten dollars a month from you and six dollars from Mister Townsend, how long time I got to pay?’

  ‘As long as you like, Rysdyk,’ Mister Seely said kindly. It hurt him to take the money at all. But he had set his price. ‘I’m glad the two will be with you,’ he added.

  As William Rysdyk counted out twenty-five silver dollars, a faraway look came into Mister Seely’s eyes. ‘Where the ramp meets the barn door,’ he said, ‘a secret vault lies beneath. There, wrapped in a worn hearth rug and covered with a piece of oiled cloth, is Silvertail’s saddle. It now belongs to you.’

  Slowly Mister Seely turned and walked into the house and up the stairs. He stood by the upper hall window and watched his hired man disappear into the vault. He watched him come out with Silvertail’s saddle and lay it on the mare’s back. Watched him ride out of the lane with a colt skittering along at heel.

  For a long time he stood there until the three creatures smalled and were lost to view.

  Seventeen

  GIBSON sighed as though William Rysdyk’s worry and relief had been his. Then a change came over his face, a look of doubt and questioning. Quickly he leafed back through the book to the title page. The words he sought were there. His finger underscored them—“a true account of the origin, history, and characteristics of Rysdyk’s H
ambletonian.” It was true! The author wasn’t telling a tall tale just to amuse himself. William Rysdyk, the Kent mare, Hambletonian, were real.

  The door opened now, and a nurse wheeled in a cart with four trays, one atop the other. Gibson’s laughter rocked through the cottage as he saw what was on them—boiled potatoes and slices of mutton, for all the world like the plate of Mehitabel Tiffet. Only this food was hot. Little feathers of steam curled up from each plate. Now he could tell the boys about his book. It was true!

  After they ate, he read snatches of the story to them, and it seemed even better for the sharing.

  The days now fell away in a beehive of busyness. There was a kind of comfort in doing things together. Mike swishing and daubing and making pictures for anyone who so much as glanced at his work. Beaver buried in blueprints. Grubber soldering and snipping and talking big of signal towers and switch points. Gibson at his bulletin board, rearranging the pictures to get more on, poring over the entries in his ledger, working problems, sending his school papers back to Lexington. And all the boys coming to his mother and grandmother with buttons to be sewed on and worries to be cleared up.

  Having roommates was better than rooming alone. Tricks and pranks seemed to make the food taste better, and riddles going from bed to bed in the dark made sleep come sooner. Letters and birthday boxes and even visitors were shared.

  But in all Gibson did, half of him was left behind on the road to Chestertown, riding a bay mare with colt-at-heel. Even in the news about Rosalind his kinship with William Rysdyk strengthened. Rysdyk would have understood what Gibson’s father meant when he wrote:

  Your filly’s ticking off eighths, quarters, and halves at a 2:30 clip. We’re avoiding top speed, however, remembering owner’s instructions not to hurry her.

  Your filly doesn’t like mud flying on her. She prefers to set the pace. But we’re teaching her to be a come-from-behind horse, too.

  Your filly’s wind is improving. Her pipes are open.