Phemie Frost's Experiences Part 60

Lx.x.x.

THE RACE-COURSE.

There is a race-ground three miles from here, where everybody is going this morning, though the weather is hot and the ocean is sound asleep, with great silver scales of sunshine trembling over it.

New York has come down in crowds to Long Branch, and all the hotels have emptied themselves on to the race-course. Three miles of road are covered with moving carriages, wagons and stages--one cloud of yellow dust rolls along the road without a break. Every carriage is gay with brightly dressed ladies. Thousands go up or down on the railroad, whose engine stops and pours out clouds of black smoke close by the race track. From the cars a stream of people now on to the course, packing themselves into the benches of the Grand Stand, or scattering on the gra.s.s around it.

When we got into the enclosure fifteen thousand people were waiting, some in the hot sun, others in the hot shade, all choked with dust and sweltering with heat.

We were late. There was but one thing that we wanted to see: the race between Longfellow and Harry Ba.s.sett--two of the swiftest horses in the country.

If horses could gamble I should call these two beautiful creatures black-legs, and the gayest of gamboliers; but as they can't do it themselves men and women do it for them.

This time twenty-five thousand dollars was to go to the swiftest horse--twenty-five thousand dollars--enough to build a meeting-house.

Doesn't it make you tremble in your shoes; but that isn't all. Everybody was betting with everybody else, just for the fun of betting.

I saw a little shaver there, ten years old, who boasted that he had won three pair of gloves from a little girl of eight.

The cream of that fifteen thousand skimmed itself off and consolidated in a handsome square building that they call the Club House. We went there, of course, and soon got seats among a crowd of upper-tenists on the roof, which took in a view of the whole race-ground.

One or two horses, with funny little fellows on their backs, were moving up and down before the Grand Stand, but no one seemed to care about them. Harry Ba.s.sett and Longfellow were all they wanted in the way of fast horses.

Sisters, don't fancy now that Longfellow is of a poetic, or even literary, turn of mind. Nor do I want you to think that his owner named him after our great New England poet because he was fired with admiration of his genius. Nothing of the kind. I don't suppose that "old Kentucky gentleman" ever read a line of Longfellow's poetry in his life--may be, though I hate to think so, he never heard of him--at any rate this great, long, swift, beautiful animal was named after himself, and n.o.body else. His body is long and slender, very long, and that is why the colt got his name. I wish it had been the other way, but it wasn't, and truth is truth. In fact, I'm afraid literature isn't appreciated on the race-course. It takes all the romance out of one to know that this grand young horse was named after his own body, and not after our great New Englander.

Never mind about the name now, Harry Ba.s.sett is coming down the road, and slackens his speed in front of the Grand Stand. A beautiful, beautiful animal, with limbs like a deer, and a coat smooth as satin, colored like a plump ripe chestnut. Fifteen thousand people clap their hands, stamp their feet, shout, cheer, and flutter out their handkerchiefs as the horse goes by.

Sisters, you never saw anything like it. A camp-meeting, where every man, woman, and child was just converted, might be a comparison, with drawbacks.

Harry Ba.s.sett took all this cool as a cuc.u.mber. It didn't disturb a hair on his glossy coat. The creature knew that he was being admired, and liked it--that was all. Down he came by the Grand Stand, past the Club House, where he got another ovation and another whirlwind of white handkerchiefs, and, wheeling round, walked back again and gave the other horse a chance.

Longfellow came next--a little larger, a little longer, and heavier in the limbs--a splendid horse; but he did not take my fancy as Harry Ba.s.sett did. From the first minute I wanted that chestnut beauty to beat; there was something about him, I can't tell what, but he suited me.

I was half put-out with Longfellow for being such a grand, powerful fellow. When he came opposite the Grand Stand, out flew the handkerchiefs and out rolled the thunder, just as it had when Ba.s.sett went by. Both the animals were so handsome that you couldn't help clapping your hands.

Bless you, the splendid creature didn't care a cent for it all. The crazy applause pa.s.sed him like wind. He liked the fresh air, and gloried in a swift run, on his own hook; twenty-five thousand dollars were nothing to him. But he showed off his magnificent proportions and allowed the hot sunshine to stroam over his brown coat with the most abominable indifference.

I insist upon it, Longfellow is a n.o.ble horse, but not so handsome or so lithe in his movement as Ba.s.sett. If these two creatures should ever come to Sprucehill, I know you will all stand by me in what I say--but then every one of you would be turned out of meeting if you only looked at a race-horse through a spy-gla.s.s.

Well, when the two handsome beasts had shown themselves off long enough, they drew up together and made ready for a start. A red flag was floating close by them. There was no noise now; not a man in all those benches clapped his hands. Instead of that, the whole crowd seemed afraid to breathe.

The red flag fell. The two horses started close together, and kept so once round the course; then that long-bodied fellow began to stretch himself a little ahead. They pa.s.sed us like two arrows shot from one bow, Longfellow's head showing first. Once more they went round. Now a roll of wild, thundering noises followed them. Longfellow was ahead; you could see a gap of light between them. Beautiful Harry Ba.s.sett tried his best; but that long-bodied trooper just flew, and came out yards ahead.

I declare it riled me. I know that the chestnut beauty could have beaten if something hadn't been the matter with him. Poor fellow! he looked awfully down in the mouth when he was ridden up right into the whirlwind of noises that rejoiced over that other horse. It seemed to me as if he knew the pain and humiliation of defeat, just as well as if he had been human; I am sure he did. Still, sisters, I stand by Harry Ba.s.sett.

Oh, mercy, how hot it was coming home those three dusty miles! How tired and thankful I was when we got safely into the Ocean Hotel, with plenty of lemonade and ice-water, with a cool wind blowing up from the water.

Sisters, I sometimes think you do not quite appreciate all the sacrifices that I make for you. The great want of our society, has been a thorough knowledge of what is going on in the wide world outside of Vermont and the Hub. That deficiency I am determined to make up by extra mission duties in the direction of general human nature. In order to prove or condemn a thing, one must see it in all its features. If ignorance were goodness, the universe would be crowded with pious people. But it isn't any such thing; and your pioneers and missionaries who mean to teach, musn't be afraid to learn. Now, there is a good deal to be said about races, and if 'twere not for the betting--which is gambling, under another name--I should rather like it. A n.o.ble horse in full training is a brave sight; and, next to a n.o.ble man or woman, I, for one, am glad to see him put forward. There isn't a bit of harm in swift running; but then twenty-five thousand dollars lost and won between two horses, is a snare and a delusion that the n.o.ble beasts have nothing to do with. I do not like that, and am quite sure that you will make it a subject of particular denunciation. I hope you will. Not that such things have ever found a mite of countenance in Vermont; but horses are raised there, and that may lead to something dreadful. If a patch of ground level enough for a race-course can be found in the State, some of these New Yorkers will be for fencing it in; and the way they are progressing here, some ambitious fellow may be wanting to charter the Green Mountains for a hurdle, for horses all but fly in these parts.

Understand me--I am not blaming the animals--they are just splendid; but betting, especially among women, is my abomination. It is an open gate through which feminines slide into a habit of gambling. I don't like it, and the sooner our American feminine women know my opinion, the sooner they will be ready to turn back and consider what they are about.

Lx.x.xI.

CLIMBING SEA CLIFF.

Dear sisters:--You are right. My mind has been too much in the world. I have been led into walks of life that do not accurately jibe with the pious experiences of former days. I confess my shortcomings with humiliation, and am resolved on a season of mission duties in another direction than horse-races. They are exciting, and give one a high-stepping inclination. Still, my motive is good.

"Try all things, and hold fast to that which is good," is scriptural, but on some occasions may be temptations, especially when the thing that is good happens to be disagreeable, and the other is awfully enticing.

Any way, sisters, I am determined to do my duty in every walk of life, and the foremost duty this moment takes me far away from Long Branch, puts me on two steamboats and two short s.n.a.t.c.hes of railroads, which land me at the foot of a great, sandy, high-sloping hill--some people call it a bluff--but which religious people of several denominations call "Sea Cliff Grove."

Now, Sea Cliff Grove is a sacred inst.i.tution, lifted high up toward Heaven, and bathed in an especial odor of sanct.i.ty, conglomerated from ever so many different churches, and so centralized in a place that may, to the fanciful mind, be considered a city set on a hill.

Indeed, it is. If Jordan is a hard road to travel, Sea Cliff Grove is an awful hill to climb, even in a covered stage, with two long, thin horses dragging the blessed pilgrims upward with all their might.

Before we got clear up, there was now and then an encouraging glimpse of brightness from the dome of the tabernacle, covered over with tin, which blazed and sparkled and shone in the hot sunshine, till it set one's brain to sweltering. If it hadn't been for a cool fringe of trees running along the edge of the hill, it seemed to me as if the whole bluff must have burned up, and gone off in a blaze of glory. That dome, which looked like a great cone, roofed in with milk-pans set on edge, was the crowning glory of a new tabernacle--not the one built without hands, for it took a great many hands to build this great, rambling affair, besides the cottages and tents and long, open stoops, that look out on the sea from morning till night.

Among these tents and little houses and the great tabernacle, the man who drove us took his ten cents a-piece, and set us down, and wheeled about, singing "Old Hundred" to his horses, and swinging his whip with slow solemnity as he lumbered down hill again.

Then we started off afoot in search of Cousin Dempster's cottage, for he had sent on ahead, and hired one of the little cubby-houses for us to stay in till the religious season was over.

We found our cubby-house at last, but somebody else had got their nine points of the law out of it. So the man sent on beforehand had pitched a tent on the gra.s.s, which we went into like Indians just returned from a hunting-party--dusty, thirsty, and sort of wolfish for something to eat.

We took off our bonnets, and pinned them by the strings to the walls of the tent, which were of the best tow-cloth I ever saw out of Vermont.

Then we shook ourselves, as hens do when they have been rolling in the dust, and pushed back our hair with both hands, which E. E. said was making a rural toilet worthy of the occasion. Then I, with the kindest intentions, shook out E. E.'s--full panier--and found it puckered-up with green burdock burs, which she had got on from the weeds on her way to the tent. These I picked off, one by one, while she was stamping her foot with a spirit that shocked me dreadfully in that sacred place, for all around us the people were singing and praying, and shouting "Hallelujah" and "Amen" and "Glory," in a way that made the pious teachings of my grandmother rile up within me. I looked upon the burdock burs as a judgment upon Mrs. Dempster, especially as I hadn't any puckerings in my dress to catch them in, and she had brought all her wordliness on her back.

Lx.x.xII.

FIGHTING FOR THE BODY.

By and by the shouts and noises hushed up a little, and there was a stampede, like a rush of cattle, in the grounds.

"Come," says Dempster, "or we shall get nothing to eat."

"Does that mean dinner?" says E. E., with a hungry look.

"Just that," says Dempster, "so look sharp; for here it is every man for himself, and the----"

"Dempster!" said I, stepping back with pious horror, "do you know where you are?"