The Busted Ex-Texan, and Other Stories Read online

on around him; how bright and sweet the boys and girlslooked, with their rosy cheeks and sparkling eyes; and how the oldparson's heart thrilled as they crowded around him when he would go, andurged him to stay,--and little Alice Dorchester begged him, with herlittle arms around his neck, to "jes' stay and gib me one more slide,please!"

  "You never made such a pastoral call as that, parson," said the deacon,as they drove away amid the cheers of the boys and the "good-bys" of thegirls, while the former fired off a volley of snow-balls in his honor,and the latter waved their muffs and handkerchiefs after them.

  "God bless them! God bless them!" said the parson. "They have lifted aload from my heart, and taught me the sweetness of life, of youth, andthe wisdom of Him who took the little ones in His arms, and blessedthem. Ah, deacon," he added, "I've been a great fool, but I'll be so,thank God! no more."

  Now, old Jack was a horse of a great deal of character, and had a greathistory; but of this none in that section, save the little deacon, knewa word. Dick Tubman, the deacon's youngest, wildest, and, we might add,favorite son, had purchased him of an impecunious jockey, at the closeof a disastrous campaign, that cleaned him completely out, and left himin a strange city a thousand miles from home, with nothing but thehorse, harness, and sulky, and a list of unpaid bills that must be metbefore he could leave the scene of his disastrous fortunes. Under suchcircumstances it was that Dick Tubman ran across the horse, and partlyout of pity for its owner, and partly out of admiration of the horse,whose failure to win at the races was due more to his lack of conditionand the bad management of his jockey than lack of speed, bought himoff-hand, and, having no use for him himself, shipped him as a presentto the deacon, with whom he had now been four years, with no harder workthan ploughing out the good old man's corn in the summer, and joggingalong the country roads on the deacon's errands. Having said thus muchof the horse, perhaps we should more particularly describe him.

  He was, in sooth, an animal of most unique and extraordinary appearance;for, in the first place, he was quite seventeen hands in height, andlong in proportion. He was also the reverse of shapely in the fashion ofhis build: for his head was long and bony, and his hip bones sharp andprotuberant; his tail was what is known among horsemen as a rat-tail,being but scantily covered with hair, and his neck was even morescantily supplied with a mane, while in color he could easily have takenany premium put up for homeliness, being an ashen roan, mottled withflecks and patches of divers hues; but his legs were flat and cordedlike a racer's, his neck long and thin as a thoroughbred's, his nostrilslarge, his ears sharply pointed and lively, while the white rings aroundhis eyes hinted at a cross, somewhere in his pedigree, with Arabianblood. A huge, bony, homely-looking horse he was, who drew the deaconand Miranda into the village on market days and Sundays, with a loose,shambling gait, making altogether an appearance so homely and peculiarthat the smart village chaps riding along in their jaunty turn-outs usedto chaff the good deacon on the character of his steed, and satiricallychallenge him to a brush. The deacon always took their badinage in goodpart, although he inwardly said more than once, "If I ever get a goodchance, when there ar'n't too many around, I'll go up to the turn of theroad beyond the church, and let Jack out on them;" for Dick had givenhim a hint of the horse's history, and told him "he could knock thespots out of thirty," and wickedly urged the deacon to take the starchout of them airy chaps some of these days. Such was the horse, then,that the deacon had ahead of him, and the old-fashioned sleigh, when,with the parson alongside, he struck into the principal street of thevillage.

  Now, New Year's Day is a lively day in many country villages, and onthis bright one especially, as the sleighing was perfect, everybody wasout. Indeed, it had got noised abroad that certain trotters of localfame were to be on the street that afternoon, and, as the boys wordedit, "there would be heaps of fun going on." And so it happened thateverybody in town, and many who lived out of it, were on this particularstreet, and just at the hour, too, when the deacon came to the foot ofit, so that the walk on either side was lined darkly with lookers-on,and the smooth snow-path between the two lines looked like a veritablehomestretch on a race-day.

  Now, when the deacon had reached the corner of the main street andturned into it, it was at that point where the course terminated and the"brushes" were ended, and at the precise moment when the dozen or twentyhorses that had just come flying down were being pulled up preparatoryto returning at a slow gait to the customary starting-point at the headof the street, a half-mile away, so that the old-fashioned sleigh wassurrounded by the light, fancy cutters of the rival racers, and oldJack was shambling awkwardly along in the midst of the high-spirited andsmoking nags that had just come flying down the stretch.

  "Hellow, deacon," shouted one of the boys, who was driving atrim-looking bay, and who had crossed the line at the ending of thecourse second only to a pacer that could "speed like a streak oflightning," as the boys said,--"Hellow, deacon; ain't you going to shakeout old shamble-heels, and show us fellows what speed is to-day?" Andthe merry-hearted chap, son of the principal lawyer of the place,laughed heartily at his challenge, while the other drivers looked at thegreat angular horse that, without any check, was walking carelesslyalong, with his head held down, ahead of the old sleigh and its churchlyoccupants.

  "I don't know but what I will," answered the deacon, good-naturedly;"don't know but what I will, if the parson don't object, and you won'tstart off too quick to begin with; for this is New Year's, and alittle extra fun won't hurt any of us, I reckon."

  THE DEACON AND PARSON.]

  "Do it, do it; we'll hold up for you," answered a dozen merry voices."Do it, deacon: it'll do old shamble-heels good to go a ten-mile-an-hourgait for once in his life, and the parson needn't fear of beingscandalized by any speed you'll get out of him, either;" and the merrychaps haw-hawed as men and boys will, when every one is jolly and funflows fast.

  And so, with any amount of good-natured chaffing from the drivers of the"fast 'uns," and from many that lined the road too,--for the day gavegreater liberty than usual to bantering speech,--the speedy ones pacedslowly up to the head of the street, with old Jack shambling demurely inthe midst of them.

  But the horse was a knowing old fellow, and had "scored" at too manyraces not to know that the "return" was to be leisurely taken, and,indeed, he was a horse of independence, and of too even, perhaps of toosluggish, a temperament, to waste himself in needless action; but hehad the right stuff in him, and hadn't forgotten his early trainingeither, for when he came to the "turn," his head and tail came up, hiseye brightened, and, with a playful movement of his huge body, andwithout the least hint from the deacon, he swung himself and thecumbrous old sleigh into line, and began to straighten himself for thecoming brush.

  Now, Jack was, as we have said, a horse of huge proportions, and needed"steadying" at the start, but the good deacon had no experience with the"ribbons," and was therefore utterly unskilled in the matter of driving;and so it came about that old Jack was so confused at the start that hemade a most awkward and wretched appearance in his effort to get off,being all "mixed up," as the saying is,--so much so that the crowdroared at his ungainly efforts, and his flying rivals were twenty rodsaway before he even got started. But at last he got his huge body in astraight line, and, leaving his miserable shuffle, squared away to hiswork, and, with head and tail up, went off at so slashing a gait that itfairly took the deacon's breath away, and caused the crowd that had beenhooting him to roar their applause, while the parson grabbed the edge ofthe old sleigh with one hand and the rim of his tall black hat with theother.

  What a pity, Mr. Longface, that God made horses as they are, and gavethem such grandeur of appearance when in action, and put such aneagle-like spirit between their ribs, so that, quitting the ploddingmotions of the ox, they can fly like that noble bird, and come sweepingdown the course as on wings of the wind!

  It was not my fault, nor the deacon's, nor the parson's either, pleaseremember, then, that awkward, shuffling, homely-lo
oking old Jack wasthus suddenly transformed, by the royalty of blood, of pride, and ofspeed given him by his Creator, from what he ordinarily was, into amagnificent spectacle of energetic velocity.

  With muzzle lifted well up, tail erect, the few hairs in it streamingstraight behind, one ear pricked forward and the other turned sharplyback, the great horse swept grandly along at a pace that was rapidlybringing him even with the rear line of the flying group. And yet solittle was the pace to him that he fairly gambolled in playfulness as hewent slashing along, until the deacon verily began to fear that thehonest old chap would break through all the bounds of propriety and sendhis