Phemie Frost's Experiences Part 50

Then, again, is the running of swift horses sinful?

Sisters, I am troubled. The more one knows, the more one is perplexed and put about. It is so easy to condemn things by the wholesale that you know nothing about. One can speak so positive about them, for total ignorance admits of no argument, and is entirely above all evidence.

That is why ignorant stubbornness is so self-satisfied and comfortable.

After all, I begin to think that "ignorance is bliss." Is there anything on this earth more snoozily comfortable than a litter of white pigs revelling with their mother in a mud-puddle--say in August? What do these contented animals care for the mud that soils their whiteness, with the pink skin shining through--rosy pigs, as one may call the kind I am speaking of. Think of them muzzling about in the rily water, free as air; then turn to your learned pig, chained to a master by the forced action of its own intellect--poor thing! obliged to play cards with its fore-foot, teach geography, and cipher out numbers like a schoolmaster--and then say if ignorance isn't bliss! Look in the little black eyes of the animal, and see the sad and hungry look that knowledge has brought to him!

To know is to want--to want is to suffer.

Where was I? Speaking about horses, naturally I wandered off down to other grades of animals--the laziest, largest, best-natured creatures of all--but, as you may observe with propriety, not suggestive of horse-races, which I admit and apologize for.

Well, right or wrong, I have been to the races at Jerome Park, which is a hollow among the hills, clear out of New York, and the other side of Harlem River. There, every spring and fall, the best horses owned about here are set a-going like wildfire, and the one that beats is thought the world of.

The park isn't much of a piece of woods, after all; a good-sized maple camp in Vermont has got twice as many trees, but then a good deal of it is turned out to gra.s.s. Then, again, a level turnpike curls in a ring all round one of the hills, and on the top of that is a kind of hotel, or long tavern, with a tremendous stoop stretched around it, where the upper-crust of fast horsedom crowd in to see the creatures run.

On the other hillside, right against the tavern, is a great long, open shed, with seats after seats sloping down from the inside, where the lower-crust of fast horsedom crowd in from the railroads, and so on.

They have to pay for going in, but, for all that, haven't a right to go across to the upper side, which must be aggravating.

All the men that go to the upper-crust tavern wear a huge round thing with a ribbon fastened to their coats, and strut awfully under them, as if they were the crowning glory of all creation. Maybe they are; I don't know, not being highly educated in horsiness.

Well, Cousin Dempster has one of these medals, which he hitched to the lappel of his coat that morning. Cousin E. E. had been fidgeting awfully all the week about a dress she was bent on wearing, and when it didn't come home from the dress-maker's till late the night before, I really thought she would take a fit right before us all. But the dress came at last, and then she wheeled right round the other way with joy.

"Such a dress!" says she. "There won't be anything to match it. All my own idea, too"

Here she tumbled a cataract of silk from a great paper box, and shook it out till it fluttered like the leaves on a young maple-tree.

"Isn't it superb?" says she; "peac.o.c.k green and peac.o.c.k blue intermingled like a poem, sloping folds up the front breadth two and two, bunching splendidly behind, frilled, flounced, corded, folded, trailing, and yet demi to a large extent. Cousin Frost, Cousin Frost!

did you ever see anything so original, so--so--"

"Scrumptious," says I, a-helping her out, "peac.o.c.k green and peac.o.c.k blue; if we only had the half-moons on the train now."

She looked at me earnestly; her soul had taken in the thought, and it burned in her eyes.

"Oh, why didn't I think of that?" says she.

I smiled. It takes genius to understand the fine irony of genius. Cousin E. E. is bright, but the subtle originality of a new thought isn't in her. That usually does in a family what this Government is trying so hard for--centralizes itself in one person.

It is not difficult to say where this supreme essence condenses itself in our family. Still, I do not object to other members making their little mark, and if E. E. can make hers in the peac.o.c.k line, why not?

To my fancy, that dress was a nation sight too much. It was all in a flutter, silk heaped on silk. E. E. tried it on, and fairly waded in silk when she walked. There was neither elegance nor simplicity in it, nothing but a sickening idea of extravagance and money.

E. E. looked like a peac.o.c.k, walked like a peac.o.c.k, and seemed to feel like one. She took a little mite of a bonnet from a box that came just after the dress, and put it on. It was shaped like the small end of a loaf of sugar, with a pink rose and a bunch of green and blue feathers on the top, bee-hivy in height, but brigandish in shape, slightly pastoral, and a little military.

"Isn't it stylish?" says she, setting it on the top of her curls and puffs, with such an air.

"Original," says I, "but you know which is _my_ color."

E. E. laughed till the feathers shook on her head.

"Oh!" says she, "Dempster and I are prudent. After the middle of July perhaps we may--"

"Till then," says I, "you'll sit on the fence peac.o.c.k fashion."

We had more words, for E. E. is n.o.body's fool; but just then Cecilia came in, and I made myself scarce.

XLVII.

THE FIRST HORSE-RACE.

Well, we started for the races in high feather. Cousin D. had just got his open carriage cushioned off beautifully. His horses had rosettes on their heads, and little looking-gla.s.ses about as big as a dollar flashing between their ears.

Cousin E. E. wore the peac.o.c.k dress and the brigandish hat. The parasol had a red coral handle, and, to own the truth, no horse on the race-ground looked faster than she did.

I followed her modestly. My pink silk seemed to grow brighter when it settled down against her green and blue; my white hat was looped up on one side with a white c.o.c.kade, and the white feather streamed out banner fashion. With me all was simplicity, patriotism, and whiteness--pure as the distinguished individual of whom they were a delicate typification.

The drive up to that race-ground was just too lovely for anything. The horses fairly flew. The wind just shook the white fringe on my parasol, and kept my emblematical feather dancing after my hat. Cousin Dempster drove, and that girl Cecilia sat high up on the front seat by him, with her short dress ruffled and pinked about the bottom like a full-blown poppy; her--well, ankles visible to the knees, and all her hair floating out loose and crinkly. I say nothing, but ask you, as females of experience, what kind of a woman will that stuck-up child make, in the long run?

The race ground was gay as a general training when we got there. It had rained lately; the trees and gra.s.s were green as green could be, and thousands of red-birds, yellow-hammers, blue-jays, and golden-robins, seemed to have settled down around the long tavern, the hill-side, and under the old trees. I declare, the sight was beautiful.

Cousin D. had to show his badge and thing at the gate; then we drove up to the long tavern with a dash, hopped gracefully out of the carriage, and walked right in among the great crowd of gentlemen and ladies chatting, laughing, and moving about the long stoop.

Sisters, I do try to be humble, but it is awful hard work. When I went into that crowd, with my pink silk trailing and that white feather all afloat, the whole congregation seemed to break into groups and hush up, just to look at me. I didn't pretend to notice this delicate ovation, but walked slowly forward, and with a becoming blush on my cheek, while E. E. and that child kept bowing and shaking hands with everybody they met.

After I had seated myself in one of the great splint-bottomed chairs that stood in dozens on the stoop, the crowd felt at liberty to go on again--and it did. A flock of birds couldn't have twittered and t.i.ttered and flitted more joyaceously than the females crowded together on that stoop.

But I soon had something else to look at. Down in front of the hotel a lot of horses were prancing to and fro, up and down, breaking into a run here, wheeling round, going back, standing still, and generally cutting about in a promiscuous manner, as if they were dying to have a dance in the street.

Sisters, in all your born days, you never saw anything like those horses! Slender, smooth as gla.s.s, with eyes like b.a.l.l.s of fire, they just took the shine off from everything in the horse line that I ever set eyes on. But the animals were nothing compared to the funny-looking creatures that rode them. A circus was nothing to them--neither is a theatre. Some of them were dressed in red, some in yellow, some in blue; one had on purple--all fitting just as tight as the skin to a rabbit's back. Each one had a boy's cap on his head; and, in fact, they all looked like boys out on a spree. There was a place just above the long tavern where most of these fellows always took their horses after a little run and blow--that was a little, cubby house, built up high from the ground, in which some men stood like captains on a steamboat.

By and by there was a stir among the horses and a hustle among the men.

"They're going to start! they're going to start!" says everybody to everybody else. A flag on the little house seemed to break down. Then off the whole lot flew like a flock of wild birds. The flying horses rushed along the road, beating time on the hard ground, and fairly taking the breath from one's lips.

I gave a little scream, and jumped up. The whole crowd rushed forward, and seemed as if it would pour itself over the railing of the long stoop.

"Where have they gone?" says I. "What has become of 'em?"

"Here they come--here they come," shouted the whole crowd, answering me all at once.

And they did come skimming along the road like wildfire--flash--flash--now two horses abreast--now one ahead--now another--then a sudden pull up, and the brown horse had won. Now it seemed to me as if the whole squad came up pretty much at the same time, but the whole crowd fell to clapping hands over the brown horse. I clapped too, and swung out my handkerchief as well as the rest; for when a mult.i.tude go into a thing like that it just sets one wild.

Then the flag took another fall, and off went another squad of horses, and around the hill they went out of sight. Then came a stormy sound of hoofs, and another streak of lightning dash in which a chestnut-colored horse showed his head first, and then came another rolling thunder-clap from the crowd, and "Joe Daniels has beat," ran from lip to lip, as if "Joe Daniels" had been up for the Presidential election and got all the votes.

Then the people cooled down, and, after a long wait, there was another rush, as if a whole training band had broke loose. We had hardly time to draw a deep breath, when they all came sweeping round in front of the long tavern, two of 'em just a little ahead, running so even and so fast, that I really believed that both of them beat the other, till the crowd began to clap and shout Alarm, which frightened me, for I thought something dreadful had happened; but Dempster hushed me up, saying it was the name of the horse that had won the race, and he was glad of it, for his friend Travers was one of the warmest-hearted, kindest fellows in the world, and ought to have a horse win every day of his life. This friendly little speech set me clapping my hands, both for the horse Alarm, his orange-colored rider, and the jolly-hearted man who owns him.