Читать книгу Five Acres Too Much - Robert Barnwell Roosevelt - Страница 8

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IN order to live in the country, one must own a horse; in order to keep house in the country, one must own a pig. In popular estimation, the animal creation stand in relation to man in the following order—cows, horses, pigs, dogs. For the existence of a large portion of the race of infants in these modern days of tight lacing and slender limbs, a cow is a prime necessity; for utility in transferring one’s self from place to place between which there is no railroad, or if there is, and the person’s life is precious in his own eyes, a horse is extremely useful; for association in contemplative moments and suggestiveness of comfortable ideas, a pig is very pleasant; for the higher enjoyments of life, for the sports of the field and wood, the dog takes first rank.

I have already described the cow. My dog, like those of all my friends, is the best in the world, and I bought the “love of a pig.” Pigs are a highly intellectual race; they not only know on which side their bread is buttered, but in which part of the trough to find the best-buttered pieces. Reader, didst thou ever study the language of a pig—the beautiful intonations of its various expressions; the grunt of welcome at its master’s approach; the sharp warning to desist if punishment is threatened; the squeal demanding more food, broken often into the most piteous accents of entreaty; the cry of pain, or scream of rage? Pig-language is a copious one, although the power to understand it is given to but few of the human race. The expressions of a pig’s face are most impressive; the eye speaks the enjoyment of a joke—twinkles with fun, as we say; conveys an intimation of anger, or expresses scorn of an underhand action or watchfulness against it. Who ever got the better of a pig by fair means? Chase him, and see him provokingly keep half a dozen feet ahead of you; try to drive him, and measure his obstinacy even by that of your wife; endeavor to lead him, and make up your mind to have a “good time.”

Our pig united many pleasant qualities and points of sagacity to a gentleness and suavity rare in the race; he had an appetite that was a joy to behold, and was as effective an appetizer as a gin-cocktail.

The household was large, and swill consequently abundant, but piggy never shrank from his duty; he seemed to feel that the reputation of all pigdom rested on him, and, no matter how often the trough was replenished, he was ever ready to renew his attacks. His sides were puffed out and rounded like a ball, but he would stand with one foot in the trough, and never desist till the last morsel was consumed. He was as clean and white as a baby in a morning-gown, and would allow his flanks to be scratched in the most gracious way, grunting gently the while, and occasionally turning over on his side. He was altogether a rarely sociable companion: so much for our pig.

In selecting a horse, there was one point I had made up my mind upon—he must be gentle; he might be fast or slow, stylish or commonplace, but kind in single or double harness, as the professionals term it, he should be. My experience of horse-flesh has been varied and instructive: I have been thrown over their heads and slid over their tails; have been dragged by saddle-stirrups and tossed out of wagons; I have had them to balk and to kick, to run and to bolt, to stand on their hind feet and kick with their front, and then reciprocate by standing on their front and kicking with their hind feet. I have seen more of a horse’s heels, have known more of the intricacies and possibilities of a “smash-up,” have had more bits of pole and whiffle-trees sent flying over my head than falls to the lot of most men; I have been thrown much with horses, and more by them; I have had them do nearly every thing they should not have done, and leave undone all that they should have done. So gentleness was the one prerequisite to a purchase, and many were the animals I examined to secure this qualification, many the faults I discovered; but I finally obtained the precise creature I wanted. He was graceful, free, fast, stylish, and, above all, perfectly gentle—a very family horse.

On the confines of Flushing stands a house about two hundred feet from the road, and surrounded on three sides by a high hedge of arbor-vitæ. At the front is a court-yard, and what was once a stately entrance, with a carriage-drive round a circle, and a number of noble forest-trees; but the grass has covered the carriage-road, weeds have choked the lawn, and the trees spread their scraggy branches untrimmed and uncared for. The dwelling is large, and has a deep piazza along the entire front; it gives every outward appearance of comfort, but no family has occupied it more than two consecutive months for many years. The house is haunted.

Many years ago an old French lady owned the place, and she had one daughter—a beauty, of course—given to falling in love, equally of course, or she would not have been French—and somewhat undutiful, as the sequel will show. The mother, according to the ordinary Parisian habit, wished to make a good match for her daughter; the latter, according to the universal female habit, wished to select a handsome husband for herself; the mother offered a wealthy and highly respectable “mentor, guide, and friend” of sixty; the young lady chose a dashing, devil-may-care lover of twenty-five. The parent dismissed the latter, the daughter dismissed the former; the mother threatened to anathematize if she was not obeyed, and, being disobeyed, did something of the kind—what, among gentlemen, would be called “tall swearing.” The daughter, who had learned the habits of American children, consented to an elopement with her lover; the time was set, the hour arrived.

It was a bright moonlight night, the seventh of October, in the year eighteen hundred and no matter what; a high wind was blowing, and scattered clouds were driving rapidly across the sky; the young gentleman at the appointed hour stood at the gate with a pair of fast trotters and one of the lightest turnouts of Brewster & Co., of Bond Street, having engaged a clergyman in the city of New York. Time flew by, but he waited in vain. His lady-love had not failed of her promises, however, but, after her mother had retired, and by her loud snoring attested the profundity of her repose, she quietly descended the stairs, opened the front door silently as the expertest of thieves, and stepped upon the piazza. At that moment a heavy cloud passed across the moon, and a fierce gust slammed to the door; fearing that her mother might have been aroused, she groped her way hastily across the piazza, caught the balustrade of the steps, and—walked off on the wrong side. It was a fall of ten feet; with a wild shriek she pitched head foremost on the bricks of the area.

The lover waited and waited, fearing let suspicions might have been aroused, or resolution have failed; amid the noise of blustering winds and falling leaves he thought he heard a cry of distress, and, at last becoming uneasy, determined to visit his dulcinea’s window, and ask her how she did. Tying his horses, he crept quietly along the shady side of the hedge, which was that on the opposite side to her room, as he did not wish to be seen. As soon as he reached the piazza, he followed along under the edge of it till he came to the steps, where he waited for a friendly cloud to conceal his movements, when he was compelled to pass outside of them.

The opportunity soon offered, he slipped by, and the cloud cleared away just after he had stumbled on a bundle of clothes, as he supposed, beyond the steps; he turned to look; and there, lying upon her back, staring up to heaven with lack-lustre, wide-open eyes, the crimson stains upon her white forehead telling her fate, stiff, and stark, and cold, lay all that he held dearest in this world. Her lips would never again whisper words of love; her heart had ceased to feel that passion which had proved her destruction. The lover’s cries aroused the house, and brought out the trembling mother to behold her daughter still undisturbed, with the horror of sudden and cruel death upon her unmitigated. And amid the shrieks of the parent and the lamentations of the servants, the maddened lover, who had been attacked with a frenzy that never left him, heaped reproaches, and retaliated with curses on her whose curses seemed in his insanity to have caused this terrible calamity.

Of the parties to this tragedy there were none living in three months; they were buried in adjoining graves, at the request of the mother, who had it done apparently as an atonement. This palliation did not seem to answer, however, for on the seventh of every month, at the hour of eleven, a ghostly figure slips out of the front door, whether it is locked or not, and with a scream falls from the piazza; a male figure suddenly appears rent with agony at its side, and then another female wringing her hands in despair, while the male gesticulates fiercely at her. Such is this veritable history as I have it from the oldest inhabitant, and it is no wonder that people do not like living in a house with such associates.

I do not often use our horse; I am not fond of driving, and have a vivid recollection of the early accidents with horse-flesh heretofore mentioned; but when it became necessary to buy a pig, my judgment was indispensable, and I was compelled to drive to the place of his residence—which was the haunted house. I did not know that it was haunted, and, being well aware of the decorum that requires the master of the establishment to “tool” his coachman, no matter how much more competent the latter may be, I took the reins, and dashed in grand style along the entrance to the door. Leaving the coachman at the animal’s head, I walked to the pig-pen, which was in the rear of the house, and there was soon engrossed in admiring the beautiful little creature that I have already described. Many minutes were devoted to the contemplation of his innumerable fine points, and I was only aroused by the noise of a struggle, shouts for help, and a clatter of hoofs. Instantly running toward the front, I arrived just in time to see the heels of Dandy Jim—for such was the animal’s name—disappearing round the corner, and to help my groom, who was lying on his back in the road, upon his feet.

It seemed that the horse had stood perfectly quiet for several minutes, then became uneasy, began to tremble, and turn his head with a wild look over his shoulder. In spite of the efforts of the coachman, who was a powerful fellow, and had been severely bruised in the struggle, he reared and plunged violently, and finally, breaking away, dashed round the circle, out at the entrance, and away up the road. The man firmly believed that Dandy had seen the ghost, which was now mentioned for the first time, although my views inclined to accept the occurrence as an outcropping of the original sin of the horse family.

The pursuit of a runaway horse is a melancholy operation—his speed is so much greater than his pursuer’s; his means of flight so much better than the latter’s opportunities for stopping him; he has four feet to set against two, and knows so well how to use them; he has such unpleasant soundness of wind and limb, and such a raging devil inside of him, while the satisfaction of recovering ruined débris is so slight, and the mode of punishment so vague. I followed along as best I might, picking up a cushion here, a blanket there, the whip in one place, and the seat in another, inquiring of every one that I met whether they had seen a horse, and being invariably answered “that they guessed they had.” It is enough to say that, after smashing every thing to pieces, tearing the body of the wagon from the wheels, tossing out what was movable, and ruining his harness, Dandy Jim became satisfied, and allowed a rustic to catch him.

Here was a pretty family horse—afraid of a ghost when all respectable families teach their children that there are no such things as ghosts; running away under supernatural, and without even the excuse of mortal, terror. I felt like shooting or selling—probably the latter, on economical principles—Dandy Jim, but eventually concluded to repair, or, more properly, remake the wagon. I could only have sold out at a great loss—and I so rarely rode behind him.

Dandy had several peculiarities of temper besides his fear of ghosts. He did not like steam-engines—if he had known how many people they kill, he would have been entirely justifiable; so one day, when I was crossing the track after having been to make a visit to a friend—for no one visits on foot in the country—Dandy Jim saw the engine approaching. That was sufficient; he immediately rose on his hind legs and pawed the air. This might possibly have contented him, but the leather straps, which were not intended to stand such a strain, gave way, and the wagon came upon his heels. What then happened I do not precisely know; he seemed to fly; occasionally he would appear to rise above the trees, and then to descend into the bowels of the earth; he leaped from side to side of the road with an ease and rapidity that would have shamed a well-practiced kangaroo; the wagon bounded after him like the tail to a boy’s kite when the latter gets pitching about with the violence of the wind, while his heels played like flashes of lightning far over my head. Fortunately, a countryman ran to my assistance and held back the wagon, while another caught the horse by the head. I rewarded those men liberally. Now a family horse should not kick, nor plunge, nor rear.

Another of his peculiarities was a dislike to standing. He did not mind standing in the stable in the least, but when he was harnessed he expected to keep moving. I hardly drove him sufficiently to learn his eccentricities of temper, and on one occasion laid down the reins for a moment. He immediately started, and the reins slipped over the dash-board out of reach. Reader, have you ever experienced the feeling of being run away with—I mean, female reader—by a horse? If not, do not aspire to it. It is not pleasant. The motion is rapid, and perhaps exhilarating, but it is not smooth, and the mode of stopping is uncertain. There is little to do, and probably much to suffer, with a possibility of ceasing to be. Dandy, instead of being a family horse, ought to have been a race-horse; his speed was wonderful, though I forgot to time it. I held by the dash-board, and shouted “ho!” at the top of my voice. Evidently his knowledge of English was imperfect; he mistook “ho” for “go,” and the more I shouted the faster he went.