A Horse's Tale

You said that if my heart was old and tired she would refresh it, and you said truly. I do not know how I got along without her, before. I was a forlorn old tree, but now that this blossoming vine has wound itself about me and become the life of my life, it is very different. As a furnisher of business for me and for Mammy Dorcas she is exhaustlessly competent, but I like my share of it and of course Dorcas likes hers, for Dorcas “raised” George, and Cathy is George over again in so many ways that she brings back Dorcas’s youth and the joys of that long-vanished time. My father tried to set Dorcas free twenty years ago, when we still lived in Virginia, but without success; she considered herself a member of the family, and wouldn’t go. And so, a member of the family she remained, and has held that position unchallenged ever since, and holds it now; for when my mother sent her here from San Bernardino when we learned that Cathy was coming, she only changed from one division of the family to the other. She has the warm heart of her race, and its lavish affections, and when Cathy arrived the pair were mother and child in five minutes, and that is what they are to date and will continue. Dorcas really thinks she raised George, and that is one of her prides, but perhaps it was a mutual raising, for their ages were the same – thirteen years short of mine. But they were playmates, at any rate; as regards that, there is no room for dispute.

Cathy thinks Dorcas is the best Catholic in America except herself. She could not pay any one a higher compliment than that, and Dorcas could not receive one that would please her better. Dorcas is satisfied that there has never been a more wonderful child than Cathy. She has conceived the curious idea that Cathy is twins, and that one of them is a boy-twin and failed to get segregated – got submerged, is the idea. To argue with her that this is nonsense is a waste of breath – her mind is made up, and arguments do not affect it. She says:

“Look at her; she loves dolls, and girl-plays, and everything a girl loves, and she’s gentle and sweet, and ain’t cruel to dumb brutes – now that’s the girl-twin, but she loves boy-plays, and drums and fifes and soldiering, and rough-riding, and ain’t afraid of anybody or anything – and that’s the boy-twin; ’deed you needn’t tell me she’s only one child; no, sir, she’s twins, and one of them got shet up out of sight. Out of sight, but that don’t make any difference, that boy is in there, and you can see him look out of her eyes when her temper is up.”

Then Dorcas went on, in her simple and earnest way, to furnish illustrations.

“Look at that raven, Marse Tom. Would anybody befriend a raven but that child? Of course they wouldn’t; it ain’t natural. Well, the Injun boy had the raven tied up, and was all the time plaguing it and starving it, and she pitied the po’ thing, and tried to buy it from the boy, and the tears was in her eyes. That was the girl-twin, you see. She offered him her thimble, and he flung it down; she offered him all the doughnuts she had, which was two, and he flung them down; she offered him half a paper of pins, worth forty ravens, and he made a mouth at her and jabbed one of them in the raven’s back. That was the limit, you know. It called for the other twin. Her eyes blazed up, and she jumped for him like a wild-cat, and when she was done with him she was rags and he wasn’t anything but an allegory. That was most undoubtedly the other twin, you see, coming to the front. No, sir; don’t tell me he ain’t in there. I’ve seen him with my own eyes – and plenty of times, at that.”

“Allegory? What is an allegory?”

“I don’t know, Marse Tom, it’s one of her words; she loves the big ones, you know, and I pick them up from her; they sound good and I can’t help it.”

“What happened after she had converted the boy into an allegory?”

“Why, she untied the raven and confiscated him by force and fetched him home, and left the doughnuts and things on the ground. Petted him, of course, like she does with every creature. In two days she had him so stuck after her that she – well, you know how he follows her everywhere, and sets on her shoulder often when she rides her breakneck rampages – all of which is the girl-twin to the front, you see – and he does what he pleases, and is up to all kinds of devilment, and is a perfect nuisance in the kitchen. Well, they all stand it, but they wouldn’t if it was another person’s bird.”

Here she began to chuckle comfortably, and presently she said:

“Well, you know, she’s a nuisance herself, Miss Cathy is, she is so busy, and into everything, like that bird. It’s all just as innocent, you know, and she don’t mean any harm, and is so good and dear; and it ain’t her fault, it’s her nature; her interest is always a-working and always red-hot, and she can’t keep quiet. Well, yesterday it was ‘Please, Miss Cathy, don’t do that’; and, ‘Please, Miss Cathy, let that alone’; and, ’Please, Miss Cathy, don’t make so much noise’; and so on and so on, till I reckon I had found fault fourteen times in fifteen minutes; then she looked up at me with her big brown eyes that can plead so, and said in that odd little foreign way that goes to your heart,

“’Please, mammy, make me a compliment.”

“And of course you did it, you old fool?”

“Marse Tom, I just grabbed her up to my breast and says, ’Oh, you po’ dear little motherless thing, you ain’t got a fault in the world, and you can do anything you want to, and tear the house down, and yo’ old black mammy won’t say a word!’”

“Why, of course, of course—I knew you’d spoil the child.”

She brushed away her tears, and said with dignity:

“Spoil the child? spoil that child, Marse Tom? There can’t anybody spoil her. She’s the king bee of this post, and everybody pets her and is her slave, and yet, as you know, your own self, she ain’t the least little bit spoiled.” Then she eased her mind with this retort: “Marse Tom, she makes you do anything she wants to, and you can’t deny it; so if she could be spoilt, she’d been spoilt long ago, because you are the very worst! Look at that pile of cats in your chair, and you sitting on a candle-box, just as patient; it’s because they’re her cats.”

If Dorcas were a soldier, I could punish her for such large frankness as that. I changed the subject, and made her resume her illustrations. She had scored against me fairly, and I wasn’t going to cheapen her victory by disputing it. She proceeded to offer this incident in evidence on her twin theory:

“Two weeks ago when she got her finger mashed open, she turned pretty pale with the pain, but she never said a word. I took her in my lap, and the surgeon sponged off the blood and took a needle and thread and began to sew it up; it had to have a lot of stitches, and each one made her scrunch a little, but she never let go a sound. At last the surgeon was so full of admiration that he said, ‘Well, you are a brave little thing!’ and she said, just as ca’m and simple as if she was talking about the weather, ‘There isn’t anybody braver but the Cid!’ You see? it was the boy-twin that the surgeon was a-dealing with.

“Who is the Cid?”

“I don’t know, sir – at least only what she says. She’s always talking about him, and says he was the bravest hero Spain ever had, or any other country. They have it up and down, the children do, she standing up for the Cid, and they working George Washington for all he is worth.”

“Do they quarrel?”

“No; it’s only disputing, and bragging, the way children do. They want her to be an American, but she can’t be anything but a Spaniard, she says. You see, her mother was always longing for home, po’ thing! and thinking about it, and so the child is just as much a Spaniard as if she’d always lived there. She thinks she remembers how Spain looked, but I reckon she don’t, because she was only a baby when they moved to France. She is very proud to be a Spaniard.”

Does that please you, Mercedes? Very well, be content; your niece is loyal to her allegiance: her mother laid deep the foundations of her love for Spain, and she will go back to you as good a Spaniard as you are yourself. She has made me promise to take her to you for a long visit when the War Office retires me.

I attend to her studies myself; has she told you that? Yes, I am her school-master, and she makes pretty good progress, I think, everything considered. Everything considered – being translated– means holidays. But the fact is, she was not born for study, and it comes hard. Hard for me, too; it hurts me like a physical pain to see that free spirit of the air and the sunshine laboring and grieving over a book; and sometimes when I find her gazing far away towards the plain and the blue mountains with the longing in her eyes, I have to throw open the prison doors; I can’t help it. A quaint little scholar she is, and makes plenty of blunders. Once I put the question:

“What does the Czar govern?”

She rested her elbow on her knee and her chin on her hand and took that problem under deep consideration. Presently she looked up and answered, with a rising inflection implying a shade of uncertainty,

“The dative case?”

Here are a couple of her expositions which were delivered with tranquil confidence:

“Chaplain, diminutive of chap. Lass is masculine, lassie is feminine.”

She is not a genius, you see, but just a normal child; they all make mistakes of that sort. There is a glad light in her eye which is pretty to see when she finds herself able to answer a question promptly and accurately, without any hesitation; as, for instance, this morning:

“Cathy dear, what is a cube?”

“Why, a native of Cuba.”

She still drops a foreign word into her talk now and then, and there is still a subtle foreign flavor or fragrance about even her exactest English – and long may this abide! for it has for me a charm that is very pleasant. Sometimes her English is daintily prim and bookish and captivating. She has a child’s sweet tooth, but for her health’s sake I try to keep its inspirations under cheek. She is obedient – as is proper for a titled and recognized military personage, which she is – but the chain presses sometimes. For instance, we were out for a walk, and passed by some bushes that were freighted with wild goose-berries. Her face brightened and she put her hands together and delivered herself of this speech, most feelingly:

“Oh, if I was permitted a vice it would be the gourmandise!”

Could I resist that? No. I gave her a gooseberry.

You ask about her languages. They take care of themselves; they will not get rusty here; our regiments are not made up of natives alone – far from it. And she is picking up Indian tongues diligently.

Chapter VI. Soldier Boy And The Mexican Plug

“When did you come?”

“Arrived at sundown.”

“Where from?”

“Salt Lake.”

“Are you in the service?”

“No. Trade.”

“Pirate trade, I reckon.”

“What do you know about it?”

“I saw you when you came. I recognized your master. He is a bad sort. Trap-robber, horse-thief, squaw-man, renegado – Hank Butters-I know him very well. Stole you, didn’t he?”

“Well, it amounted to that.”

“I thought so. Where is his pard?”

“He stopped at White Cloud’s camp.”

“He is another of the same stripe, is Blake Haskins.” (Aside.) They are laying for Buffalo Bill again, I guess. (Aloud.) “What is your name?”

“Which one?”

“Have you got more than one?”

“I get a new one every time I’m stolen. I used to have an honest name, but that was early; I’ve forgotten it. Since then I’ve had thirteen aliases.”

“Aliases? What is alias?”

“A false name.”

“Alias. It’s a fine large word, and is in my line; it has quite a learned and cerebrospinal incandescent sound. Are you educated?”

“Well, no, I can’t claim it. I can take down bars, I can distinguish oats from shoe-pegs, I can blaspheme a saddle-boil with the college-bred, and I know a few other things – not many; I have had no chance, I have always had to work; besides, I am of low birth and no family. You speak my dialect like a native, but you are not a Mexican Plug, you are a gentleman, I can see that; and educated, of course.”

“Yes, I am of old family, and not illiterate. I am a fossil.”

“A which?”

“Fossil. The first horses were fossils. They date back two million years.”

“Gr-eat sand and sage-brush! do you mean it?”

“Yes, it is true. The bones of my ancestors are held in reverence and worship, even by men. They do not leave them exposed to the weather when they find them, but carry them three thousand miles and enshrine them in their temples of learning, and worship them.”

“It is wonderful! I knew you must be a person of distinction, by your fine presence and courtly address, and by the fact that you are not subjected to the indignity of hobbles, like myself and the rest. Would you tell me your name?”

“You have probably heard of it – Soldier Boy.”

“What! – the renowned, the illustrious?”

“Even so.”

“It takes my breath! Little did I dream that ever I should stand face to face with the possessor of that great name. Buffalo Bill’s horse! Known from the Canadian border to the deserts of Arizona, and from the eastern marches of the Great Plains to the foot-hills of the Sierra! Truly this is a memorable day. You still serve the celebrated Chief of Scouts?”

“I am still his property, but he has lent me, for a time, to the most noble, the most gracious, the most excellent, her Excellency Catherine, Corporal-General Seventh Cavalry and Flag-Lieutenant Ninth Dragoons, U.S.A., – on whom be peace!”

“Amen. Did you say her Excellency?”

“The same. A Spanish lady, sweet blossom of a ducal house. And truly a wonder; knowing everything, capable of everything; speaking all the languages, master of all sciences, a mind without horizons, a heart of gold, the glory of her race! On whom be peace!”

“Amen. It is marvellous!”

“Verily. I knew many things, she has taught me others. I am educated. I will tell you about her.”

“I listen – I am enchanted.”

“I will tell a plain tale, calmly, without excitement, without eloquence. When she had been here four or five weeks she was already erudite in military things, and they made her an officer – a double officer. She rode the drill every day, like any soldier; and she could take the bugle and direct the evolutions herself. Then, on a day, there was a grand race, for prizes – none to enter but the children. Seventeen children entered, and she was the youngest. Three girls, fourteen boys – good riders all. It was a steeplechase, with four hurdles, all pretty high. The first prize was a most cunning half-grown silver bugle, and mighty pretty, with red silk cord and tassels. Buffalo Bill was very anxious; for he had taught her to ride, and he did most dearly want her to win that race, for the glory of it. So he wanted her to ride me, but she wouldn’t; and she reproached him, and said it was unfair and unright, and taking advantage; for what horse in this post or any other could stand a chance against me? and she was very severe with him, and said, ’You ought to be ashamed – you are proposing to me conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman.’ So he just tossed her up in the air about thirty feet and caught her as she came down, and said he was ashamed; and put up his handkerchief and pretended to cry, which nearly broke her heart, and she petted him, and begged him to forgive her, and said she would do anything in the world he could ask but that; but he said he ought to go hang himself, and he must, if he could get a rope; it was nothing but right he should, for he never, never could forgive himself; and then she began to cry, and they both sobbed, the way you could hear him a mile, and she clinging around his neck and pleading, till at last he was comforted a little, and gave his solemn promise he wouldn’t hang himself till after the race; and wouldn’t do it at all if she won it, which made her happy, and she said she would win it or die in the saddle; so then everything was pleasant again and both of them content. He can’t help playing jokes on her, he is so fond of her and she is so innocent and unsuspecting; and when she finds it out she cuffs him and is in a fury, but presently forgives him because it’s him; and maybe the very next day she’s caught with another joke; you see she can’t learn any better, because she hasn’t any deceit in her, and that kind aren’t ever expecting it in another person.

“It was a grand race. The whole post was there, and there was such another whooping and shouting when the seventeen kids came flying down the turf and sailing over the hurdles – oh, beautiful to see! Half-way down, it was kind of neck and neck, and anybody’s race and nobody’s. Then, what should happen but a cow steps out and puts her head down to munch grass, with her broadside to the battalion, and they a-coming like the wind; they split apart to flank her, but she? – why, she drove the spurs home and soared over that cow like a bird! and on she went, and cleared the last hurdle solitary and alone, the army letting loose the grand yell, and she skipped from the horse the same as if he had been standing still, and made her bow, and everybody crowded around to congratulate, and they gave her the bugle, and she put it to her lips and blew ’boots and saddles’ to see how it would go, and BB was as proud as you can’t think! And he said, ’Take Soldier Boy, and don’t pass him back till I ask for him!’ and I can tell you he wouldn’t have said that to any other person on this planet. That was two months and more ago, and nobody has been on my back since but the Corporal-General Seventh Cavalry and Flag-Lieutenant of the Ninth Dragoons, U.S.A.,– on whom be peace!”

“Amen. I listen – tell me more.”

“She set to work and organized the Sixteen, and called it the First Battalion Rocky Mountain Rangers, U.S.A., and she wanted to be bugler, but they elected her Lieutenant-General and Bugler. So she ranks her uncle the commandant, who is only a Brigadier. And doesn’t she train those little people! Ask the Indians, ask the traders, ask the soldiers; they’ll tell you. She has been at it from the first day. Every morning they go clattering down into the plain, and there she sits on my back with her bugle at her mouth and sounds the orders and puts them through the evolutions for an hour or more; and it is too beautiful for anything to see those ponies dissolve from one formation into another, and waltz about, and break, and scatter, and form again, always moving, always graceful, now trotting, now galloping, and so on, sometimes near by, sometimes in the distance, all just like a state ball, you know, and sometimes she can’t hold herself any longer, but sounds the ‘charge,’ and turns me loose! and you can take my word for it, if the battalion hasn’t too much of a start we catch up and go over the breastworks with the front line.

“Yes, they are soldiers, those little people; and healthy, too, not ailing any more, the way they used to be sometimes. It’s because of her drill. She’s got a fort, now – Fort Fanny Marsh. Major-General Tommy Drake planned it out, and the Seventh and Dragoons built it. Tommy is the Colonel’s son, and is fifteen and the oldest in the Battalion; Fanny Marsh is Brigadier-General, and is next oldest – over thirteen. She is daughter of Captain Marsh, Company B, Seventh Cavalry. Lieutenant-General Alison is the youngest by considerable; I think she is about nine and a half or three-quarters. Her military rig, as Lieutenant-General, isn’t for business, it’s for dress parade, because the ladies made it. They say they got it out of the Middle Ages – out of a book – and it is all red and blue and white silks and satins and velvets; tights, trunks, sword, doublet with slashed sleeves, short cape, cap with just one feather in it; I’ve heard them name these things; they got them out of the book; she’s dressed like a page, of old times, they say. It’s the daintiest outfit that ever was – you will say so, when you see it. She’s lovely in it – oh, just a dream! In some ways she is just her age, but in others she’s as old as her uncle, I think. She is very learned. She teaches her uncle his book. I have seen her sitting by with the book and reciting to him what is in it, so that he can learn to do it himself.

“Every Saturday she hires little Injuns to garrison her fort; then she lays siege to it, and makes military approaches by make-believe trenches in make-believe night, and finally at make-believe dawn she draws her sword and sounds the assault and takes it by storm. It is for practice. And she has invented a bugle-call all by herself, out of her own head, and it’s a stirring one, and the prettiest in the service. It’s to call me—it’s never used for anything else. She taught it to me, and told me what it says: ’It is I, soldier – come!’ and when those thrilling notes come floating down the distance I hear them without fail, even if I am two miles away; and then – oh, then you should see my heels get down to business!

“And she has taught me how to say good-morning and good-night to her, which is by lifting my right hoof for her to shake; and also how to say good-bye; I do that with my left foot – but only for practice, because there hasn’t been any but make-believe good-byeing yet, and I hope there won’t ever be. It would make me cry if I ever had to put up my left foot in earnest. She has taught me how to salute, and I can do it as well as a soldier. I bow my head low, and lay my right hoof against my cheek. She taught me that because I got into disgrace once, through ignorance. I am privileged, because I am known to be honorable and trustworthy, and because I have a distinguished record in the service; so they don’t hobble me nor tie me to stakes or shut me tight in stables, but let me wander around to suit myself. Well, trooping the colors is a very solemn ceremony, and everybody must stand uncovered when the flag goes by, the commandant and all; and once I was there, and ignorantly walked across right in front of the band, which was an awful disgrace: Ah, the Lieutenant-General was so ashamed, and so distressed that I should have done such a thing before all the world, that she couldn’t keep the tears back; and then she taught me the salute, so that if I ever did any other unmilitary act through ignorance I could do my salute and she believed everybody would think it was apology enough and would not press the matter. It is very nice and distinguished; no other horse can do it; often the men salute me, and I return it. I am privileged to be present when the Rocky Mountain Rangers troop the colors and I stand solemn, like the children, and I salute when the flag goes by. Of course when she goes to her fort her sentries sing out ’Turn out the guard!’ and then…do you catch that refreshing early-morning whiff from the mountain-pines and the wild flowers? The night is far spent; we’ll hear the bugles before long. Dorcas, the black woman, is very good and nice; she takes care of the Lieutenant-General, and is Brigadier-General Alison’s mother, which makes her mother-in-law to the Lieutenant-General. That is what Shekels says. At least it is what I think he says, though I never can understand him quite clearly. He—”

“Who is Shekels?”

“The Seventh Cavalry dog. I mean, if he is a dog. His father was a coyote and his mother was a wild-cat. It doesn’t really make a dog out of him, does it?”

“Not a real dog, I should think. Only a kind of a general dog, at most, I reckon. Though this is a matter of ichthyology, I suppose; and if it is, it is out of my depth, and so my opinion is not valuable, and I don’t claim much consideration for it.”

“It isn’t ichthyology; it is dogmatics, which is still more difficult and tangled up. Dogmatics always are.”

“Dogmatics is quite beyond me, quite; so I am not competing. But on general principles it is my opinion that a colt out of a coyote and a wild-cat is no square dog, but doubtful. That is my hand, and I stand pat.”

“Well, it is as far as I can go myself, and be fair and conscientious. I have always regarded him as a doubtful dog, and so has Potter. Potter is the great Dane. Potter says he is no dog, and not even poultry – though I do not go quite so far as that.

“And I wouldn’t, myself. Poultry is one of those things which no person can get to the bottom of, there is so much of it and such variety. It is just wings, and wings, and wings, till you are weary: turkeys, and geese, and bats, and butterflies, and angels, and grasshoppers, and flying-fish, and – well, there is really no end to the tribe; it gives me the heaves just to think of it. But this one hasn’t any wings, has he?”