Born to Trot

by Marguerite Henry

  Your filly’s coming fast. She went a short sweet brush today.

  Your filly’s learning to score down and take off with a field of veterans.

  Your filly’s learning to trot near the rail and away from the rail and in the middle of the pack. So wherever she finds herself in a race she should feel at home.

  Your filly seems to know trotting is the business of her life.

  Your filly steps off gaily and takes her work with a relish.

  Your filly responds. Turn her head the right way of the track and she’ll fly. Turn her in the opposite direction and she just saunters along.

  Often the book lay untouched for days, waiting for an hour when Mike and Grubber and Beaver would be absorbed in their own lives. The next time came just after his mother and grandmother had returned home. It was a day of rain, a hard-driven rain rip-rapping on the roof, plashing at the window panes, tittle-tattling on the tin of the eavestrough, rushing down the spout, then deadening itself in the earth.

  Voices were lost in the din of it, and minds went burrowing into their own tunnels like moles.

  Gibson dug into his saddlebag. His hand found the book, and his nose smelled of it. The dampness had brought out the nice leathery aroma. With eager fingers he opened to his place.

  9: Rysdyk’s Big Bull

  The Kent mare with colt-at-heel faced the morning and the bigness of it. It belonged to them. The whole of it. Earth and sky and mountain, and leaves swirling and goldfinches swinging on weed stems until a body dizzied just watching. Sometimes a madcap wind tossed a shower of hickory nuts on their heads. This sent the colt scampering off until his mother whickered him back.

  There was so much for the colt to do! Milkweed fluff to blow to smithers, blinking frogs to out-stare, then to flip with his muzzle until he jumped them out of sight.

  ‘Ai yai yai,’ sighed William Rysdyk as he slid down from the mare’s back to lead her a while. ‘Hambletonian and mare-mom. It ain’t only one kind of joy, it’s two!’

  They passed houses with featherbeds airing and houses sending out spicy odors of fall preserving, passed cornfields with men shocking corn and gangs of blackbirds squawking over dropped kernels. But William Rysdyk neither saw nor heard nor smelled autumn. For his eyes there was only the colt trotting beside his mother, for his ears only the patter of hoofs on the road, for his nostrils only the good warm smell of the sun on their bodies.

  At home with his colt and mare, William Rysdyk fell to work with dogged energy. ‘That Dutchman is touched in the head,’ his neighbors said as they gaped over their fences, watching him toil and sweat for the lame mare and the overbig colt. They watched him make a foundation of stones on the slope of a hill, wondering why he piled the stones so high in front and so low against the hill. When he moved the sloping-roofed chicken shed and set it on the foundation, then they knew.

  ‘It got to be high roofed for mare-mom now and for Hambletonian when he gets big,’ William Rysdyk told the curious. ‘And if it got chicken lice, I end them,’ he said, pouring boiling water over lye ashes and brooming the walls with fierce pleasure.

  As a crowning touch he thatched the roof for warmth in winter and coolness in summer. When the work was done he stood proud, as a brood-mare face and a young quizzical one looked out upon their master. ‘Is snug!’ he said. ‘Rough-made but not leaky. By criminy! A colt here can be happy like anything!’

  ‘Hmpf!’ the neighbors snorted. ‘He looks more bull than colt.’ And behind the Dutchman’s back and to his face, the colt became known as ‘Rysdyk’s Big Bull.’

  The more they taunted, however, the more firmly the man believed in the greatness of his colt, and the harder he trained him. Up before the stars faded, teaching him to whoa, leading him at the trot. Faster and faster each morning, until both man and colt grew hard-muscled and deep-lunged.

  As for the mare, she seemed to grow younger with the months. When anyone came near, both she and her colt would strike a trot for the pure love and excitement of speed.

  Always late at night after chores, William Rysdyk hied himself to the little hillside barn with old salt sacks for rub rags. There he would curry and groom until two coats shone glossy bright. Sometimes when he had finished rubbing Hambletonian’s coat he stood back in awe, reluctant to run his rough fingertips across it for fear of snagging the satin.

  With two creatures dependent on him, William Rysdyk’s work had a new strength and purpose. Sleeves rolled, he faced each season like a giant refreshed—splitting logs, hauling, plowing as if he were made of iron. Isaac Townsend’s and Jonas Seely’s acres began yielding more wheat, more rye, more corn. This pleased them so greatly they gave their hired hand a Jersey milch cow and a red Holstein.

  And each month the money-till in the teapot was opened and silver dollars tucked inside. Soon the debt would be paid. Soon the mare and colt would be William Rysdyk’s. Only once did he dip into his savings. A beautiful white martingale hanging from the ceiling in the general store seemed made for the colt.

  ‘Maybe this I buy for the Fair, not knowing, yet knowing,’ he chuckled as he fastened it on Hambletonian.

  It was a September day, and without any more thought, without any planning, he entered Hambletonian, now two years old, in the Orange County Fair. The whole idea came on him suddenly. He knew he owned the best two-year-old in the county; it was high time others knew.

  When it came William Rysdyk’s turn to show his colt, the judges shouted, ‘Make way! Make way!’ And indeed the warning was needed. Men, women, children jumped back in alarm to escape the flying heels. Lead rein in hand, William Rysdyk ran up and down showing his colt at the trot. He forgot he was at the Fair. He forgot everything in the rhythm of his colt’s trot. Side by side they went, man and horse, evenly matched, not wanting to whoa. Not either of them.

  It was the judge, cupping his hands to his mouth, bellowing like a bull, that called a halt. ‘Whoa!’ he roared. ‘First prize in the two-year-old stallion class to Hambletonian by Abdallah.’

  The crowd stood stunned as the blue ribbon and the five-dollar premium went to William Rysdyk. Their mouths were opened, their hands rigid at their sides. They could not applaud. When at last their tongues loosed, they said, ‘Oh—him,’ pointing to the colt. ‘The judge has been taken in by the white martingale and the man’s endurance. Does the ribbon stand for speed? No! Does it stand for style? Sakes, no! Not with only two other stallions in the competition.’ They laughed in relief.

  And so the blue ribbon added little to the colt’s fame. Not even in the eyes of his owner. William Rysdyk already knew his horse was best.

  With the five-dollar premium he bought an old, dilapidated gig with a hub and two spokes missing. After seeing to its repair and building a box on it, he used it to deliver milk to the Erie Railroad for Mister Seely, Mister Townsend, and himself. The colt, frisky and green, trotted between the shafts.

  ‘I get a color when I think it is you I drive to a milk wagon,’ William Rysdyk confided in him on their first trip. ‘But look once,’ he said to the pricked ears, ‘how it with us stands. Soon the old teapot gets heavy with silver. Soon is all fixed up with Mister Seely, and you I own. Outright! Then will you have it pleasant with me.’

  The third time out, Hambletonian looked as comfortable in harness as he did in halter. He was jogging down the main pike, full of play as a kitten, shaking his head and bugling to the morning. Behind him, in the box of the cart, the milk cans made a pleasant rattling.

  Suddenly, halfway between Sugar Loaf and Chestertown, he felt a few drops of rain on his nose. They were big drops. Big and far apart at first. Then a wind came up and the rain smalled and needled, pricking him, now on the back, now on the face.

  He asked William Rysdyk to go. As plainly as it is given a horse to talk, he said, ‘Let’s step! To the station to dump the milk cans. Then home! Home to the snug hillside barn, with hay wisping out of the rack.’

  ‘Yah, shure!’ William Rysdyk answered the colt, for the rain
dripped from his hat brim and now was running coldly down his neck. And the wind kept lifting his wet beard, slapping it across his face. ‘Yah, shure!’ he agreed. ‘Is better we should go!’

  And go they did. Like eels through water. The countryside swam past them. The pike was theirs. Beckoning to them, curling a finger at them. Then in a flash of lightning they saw a blur in the distance. A humpbacked blur crawling on the road, crawling like some beetle. Only bigger. Blacker. Blocking the pike.

  ‘Over-catch it!’ cried William Rysdyk, and Hambletonian bore down on the beetly thing. It was a gig! Shiny new, drawn by a high-stepping black. Rain sheeted over the blackness of it, over the black umbrella of the driver, over the black back of the horse.

  Hambletonian wanted to be rid of it, to get around it, to kick rain in its face.

  But the black thing was black in spirit, too. It hogged the center of the pike, lurching with laughter at the ditches on either side, the ditches deep and slippery with rain.

  Now Hambletonian was breathing on the beetle’s back, prodding it with his breath. Unless it flew away, he was going to trot right over it, smashing its shiny shell. William Rysdyk’s mouth went open to cry ‘Whoa!’ But the word died on his lips. For to his left a farmer’s lane came out, broadening to meet the road. Perhaps they could pass the black beetle there. Perhaps.

  Now the colt saw it, too, now felt his right rein slacken, felt a tightening of his left, felt his head turning the way he wanted to go! The way was his! With twenty-foot strides he caught the black just as he hit the widened place in the road, then whipped around him, back onto the pike, the cart teetering wildly. ‘Hurrah!’ cried William Rysdyk. ‘You done it!’ And the milk cans rattled and applauded in the box.

  In the midst of a hurrah William Rysdyk glanced back. The man jouncing under the umbrella was long-nosed Henry Spingler! At the self-same instant Mister Spingler caught as in a glare of light the dilapidated gig, the teetering milk cans, the beard strangely familiar, and the big-eared colt. His back stiffened. A chunk horse passing his black! A chunk horse a pacemaker for him!

  He slapped the lines, lifted them, lifting the black’s head, yelling to him, yelling at him, roaring with the thunder.

  ‘So big a noise from so little a man!’ laughed William Rysdyk.

  And now the black began to step, lengthening his stride, settling to business.

  Hambletonian pounded on, his ears laced back, tormented by the oncoming hoofbeats. Down the main street of Chestertown, past the inn, past the church, the bank, the postoffice, the general store they raced, the black still trailing. Bankers, printers, storekeepers came running out, bareheaded in the rain. The din was ear-splitting. Hoofs clattering. Milk cans clinking. Voices cheering, some for Rysdyk’s Big Bull, and some for the black.

  ‘By golly,’ exclaimed William Rysdyk, ‘the speed comes sooner as I think! A colt making challenge to Mister Spingler’s horse!’ A wild ecstasy poured through him as he felt the give and take between Hambletonian’s mouth and his own hand. ‘Maybe his hips is higher as his shoulders? Maybe so. What else gives the pushing power? What else?’

  For a full mile Main Street ran straight as a whiffletree, then turned sharply to the right along the Erie tracks to the station. The road was wide enough for a good brush, wide enough for horses to go abreast, for horses to pass. But there was no passing. Hambletonian was mighty as the storm. He was a bolt of lightning, fearing nothing, driven by the thunder of his own speed. The black lumbered along behind, as if Mister Spingler were an anchor around his neck.

  They were nearing the turn now and William Rysdyk took a quick glance over his shoulder. He saw Mister Spingler reach for the whip, saw him crack it across his horse’s rump, saw at the same instant the wind whoosh under the umbrella and blow it inside out.

  Hambletonian saw it, too. He made a shying jump, then caught his trot. But the black, frightened out of his wits, broke into a wild gallop, broke free of the shafts, and streaked for home. The gig, however, slurred on, making a beeline for a bed of canna lilies at the door of the station. It wound up there, very still, with one wheel off. And poking up very pertly between its spokes were canna lilies, red and yellow.

  As William Rysdyk reined in, he looked back amazed. Mister Spingler, in top hat, was sitting in the flower bed, sitting quite upright in what was left of the gig. And in his hand he held, like a torch, the inside-out umbrella.

  Eighteen

  GIBSON burst into hilarious laughter. He glanced up to see the rain still washing against the panes. And if he peered into the grayness of it, he could see quite plainly the ramrod figure of Mister Spingler sitting among the lilies.

  “Hey, Gib!” Beaver called above the rain. “Why don’t you get through with One Man’s Horse and let me ride him a while?”

  With thumb and fingers Gibson felt the fewness of the pages left to him. “Only a little more to go,” he said wistfully. Then he began laughing again. “I think William Rysdyk’s in for a peck of trouble.”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “I don’t know, but he just made a monkey of Henry Spingler’s big black.”

  “Who’s Henry Spingler?”

  “He’s the town bigwig.”

  “Well, find out what happens so I can have the book.”

  Beaver’s words were wasted. Gibson had already turned the page.

  10: Mister Spingler Hurls a Challenge

  Mister Spingler was not one to forget. At dusk that very evening he appeared in the doorway of William Rysdyk’s cowshed. Behind him was the committee—John Doughty, Israel Toothill with dog at heel, and Mister Dandy, the driver, wearing a coat much less elegant.

  ‘Ahem,’ coughed Mister Spingler.

  William Rysdyk was milking his red Holstein at the time, and the sound startled him so completely he almost upset his milkpail. He stumbled to his feet, remembering his manners.

  ‘How make you it?’ he asked the men politely.

  Mister Spingler ignored the question. He inserted two fingers between the buttons of his waistcoat. ‘You may finish your milking,’ he said. ‘Then we would have a word with you.’

  Two more squirts and the pail was full. William Rysdyk now poured the steaming milk into a can, lowered it into a tank of water, and came over to the waiting men.

  ‘We have come,’ Mister Spingler announced, ‘to see the colt. Be so good as to trot him out.’

  Slowly William Rysdyk walked across the pasture lot to the barn, wondering what the men could want. Still more slowly he opened the door of the colt’s stall, standing proudly to one side as the horse charged out like Messenger down the gangplank. With nostrils distended he sampled the air. Then he trotted across the grassy plot as if his legs had springs in them.

  ‘Sic your sheep dog on him,’ Mister Spingler commanded Mister Toothill. ‘I’ll wager he can make him break from that trot.’

  Israel Toothill made a hissing sound, and with a yelp the dog was off. Across the pasture he chased the colt, snapping and barking at his heels. But the colt danced neatly out of his way, never once shifting from his trot.

  William Rysdyk broke out in a chuckle that made the blood rise in Mister Spingler’s face. The little man spun around, turning his back on the sight. ‘You, Rysdyk!’ he said, coming very close to him. ‘We’ve a challenge to propose to you.’

  As William Rysdyk’s head went up in surprise, his beard brushed Mister Spingler’s long bill nose.

  The man stepped back in disgust. ‘We have come,’ he sniffed, rubbing his nose, ‘to propose for your beast a public trial at the Union Course on Long Island. This would give you an opportunity to show his speed. And fairly,’ he added, ‘with no umbrella to frighten his opponent.’

  William Rysdyk stood with his mouth open, looking at the faces of the men, from one to the other. The import of the words numbed him. The Union Course. Long Island. A public trial. Over the same mile Bishop’s Hambletonian and Silvertail had trotted!

  ‘Well?’ Mister Spingler said sha
rply.

  ‘Excuse, sir. It fuddles me. What say you again?’

  Mister Spingler felt his colleagues’ eyes on him. He pulled himself up, speaking deliberately. ‘Perhaps you are afraid. Afraid your horse lacks the stamina.’

  ‘Him?’ William Rysdyk exploded. ‘Why, he can trot out quicker as a dog, sir, and he still got some power over. By golly, look on him now.’

  Mister Spingler turned around to look. It was true. The colt with the dog yapping at his heels seemed as fresh as when he had pranced out of his stall.

  ‘Please to call up your dog, sir,’ William Rysdyk said, surprised at his own boldness.

  When the dog came in, panting and slavering, John Doughty and Israel Toothill and Mister Dandy broke into the talk, anxious to get the matter settled. Their sentences came quick and staccato.

  ‘The match will come off Tuesday next.’

  ‘Sharp at three.’

  ‘Trotting against your colt will be his half brother—Abdallah Chief, owned by Mister Roe.’

  ‘First The Chief will trot the mile. Then your horse.’

  ‘The better time wins.’

  ‘As to the matter of finances,’ the banker said, ‘the committee will pay the costs of shipping your colt over the Erie, and Mister Seely has donated the use of his skeleton wagon, the same one Silvertail drew over the same course.’

  Now everything was said. A strained silence followed, broken only by the panting of the sheep dog.

  Mister Spingler tapped his boot, vexed at the delay. ‘Do you or do you not wish to match him?’ He fairly shouted the question.

  ‘That I know not, sir. Abdallah Chief—him I have seen. He is over the four years, leaned from the racing. Hambletonian, he is yet a round-barreled colt, and only three times in the harness.’

  ‘Very well, if you have no confidence . . .’

  William Rysdyk gave a look of contempt. ‘Who said it we would not go? We got to!’ he announced, pride rising in him.