“You mean a blood bay,” Jimmy corrected.
“Same thing,” George interrupted. “Red or blood bay.”
“But blood bay is better,” Jimmy said. “I’ve never had a blood bay before,” he added quickly, and a sudden, eager light came into his eyes. “You like him, Tom? You see nothing wrong?”
Tom responded fast to Jimmy’s enthusiasm. “He looks wonderful to me, Jimmy. But I’m not—”
“You got a good head for horses,” Jimmy said. “If you say he looks good, he’ll look good to me, too.”
“And Jimmy’s not foolin’,” George said.
Tom turned to George Snedecker and saw the relief in his face too at Jimmy’s interest and sudden enthusiasm. That’s Jimmy for you, Tom thought; on again, off again; but this man so interested in his blood bay colt was the real Jimmy.
Less than a half-hour after leaving the fair, they turned down the lane leading to the farm. While the car careened over the rocky route and all of them bounced hard on the springless seats, Jimmy said, laughing, “Y’ought to get a new car, Wilmer, or build a new road!”
“Heh?” Uncle Wilmer asked.
But Jimmy didn’t repeat his statement; instead he turned to George. “We’ll see him in a minute, won’t we, George?”
“Sure will, Jimmy.”
They emerged from the woods and the barn was ahead of them. As they crossed the brook, the Queen came from her stall and into the paddock at the sound of the car. She raised her head, whinnying to them. From inside the stall, the colt echoed her whinny. As they stopped the car, there was a rustle of straw from the stall, and Tom said, “I’ll bet he was down, sleeping.”
Jimmy was out of the car first and went to the mare. But no sooner had he reached her than the colt came bolting out of the stall, head high, ears pricked, eyes searching, and seemingly covered completely by straw entwined in his coat. He had been down, all right.
Tom climbed through the rails of the paddock fence to go to him, but Jimmy and George stood still, content at first to look at the colt from a distance.
Quickly the colt came to Tom, nuzzling his hands and pockets, while the boy talked to him and ran his hands over the hard body, removing the straw. Then he scratched him on the spots he knew the colt liked best. For a long while Jimmy and George just stood there studying the colt. And the colt turned his large, wondering eyes toward them, trying to figure them out, too.
Finally Tom took him by the halter and led him away from the Queen and to the far side of the paddock and back. He did it, he told himself, so Jimmy and George could see the colt’s beautiful walk, as light as though he could step on eggshells without cracking them. But Tom knew well enough he had another reason for leading the colt around as he was doing. He wanted Jimmy to see that he had done a good job, the job Jimmy had expected of him.
Jimmy noticed, for he said, when they approached him at the fence, “You did it, Tom. We won’t be havin’ any trouble with him.”
“And he’s what you said about him,” George added.
“Is he, Jimmy?” Tom turned to him for his opinion, too.
“And more, Tom,” Jimmy said, “Much more.”
“I believe it,” Uncle Wilmer spoke for the first time. “You won’t find none better.”
“No,” Jimmy said, “I don’t think anyone could find a better-looking colt.”
“And he’ll have the speed, too, Jimmy,” Tom said convincingly.
“We’ll see,” Jimmy said. Turning to the Queen, he added, “He should have it, with the Queen for his dam and the Black for a sire.” His hand stayed on the mare, stroking her while he turned again to the colt. “He’s goin’ to be a blood bay, all right, Tom. I wouldn’t know where he gets that color. But I know just from looking at him that he’s got the Queen’s good temperament—that’s in his eyes. They’re hers, all right. But there’s a lot of the Black in his body. He’s going to be big, maybe sixteen hands. And the quarters are the Black’s an’ the chest, too. So’s the head; it’s going to be fairly small and sets well on his neck. That neck is the Queen’s, though. That much we can all see,” he added quietly. “What’s inside of him is another story, and that is most important. The will and drive to win is what I hope he has.”
“He’ll have it, Jimmy,” Tom said eagerly. “You should see him in the pasture. He’ll go from morning to night. Why, he’ll …”
And for the next hour and a half all three stood there, listening to Tom give an account of his colt and watching him while he played about the paddock. It came to an end only by Aunt Emma’s shattering call to come to supper.
To make the round kitchen table as large as possible, Aunt Emma had inserted all her extra leaves. On it, Tom knew, was her best rose-bordered tablecloth, but you couldn’t see much of it, for it seemed that every platter and bowl she had was on the table, each filled with good things, smoking and steaming hot.
Jimmy took one look at the platters of fried chicken, the bowls of gravy and giblets, the pork sausage, the potato filling studded with chopped onions and celery, the steaming plates of hot corn, peas and noodles, and all the hot rolls waiting to be eaten; then he turned to Aunt Emma in amazement. “My gosh!” he said. “What a spread of food! You did it all now—while we were at the barn?”
Aunt Emma turned from the hot wood stove, her face flushed from its heat. “Land sakes, Jimmy. Why, this is nothing,” she said. But she smiled and her eyes lighted at Jimmy’s appreciation of her well-filled table.
Motioning them to the straight-backed chairs around the table, Uncle Wilmer said, “When a farmer eats, he eats.”
“It sure looks like it,” George said, taking his seat. “It’s hard knowin’ where to start.”
“Start here,” Aunt Emma said, passing him the fried chicken.
They spent a long time at the table, and as Jimmy Creech ate, his spirits rose higher. Very often George would catch Tom’s gaze and nod his head as though to imply that he had been right all along when he had said that all Jimmy needed were the colt and a good, hot meal.
Eagerly Jimmy discussed the potentialities of the colt and how he would go about training him. He even went so far as to ask Uncle Wilmer if he’d like to take care of the Queen when he was ready to wean the colt from her a few months from now. “I want a good home for her while I’m busy with the colt,” he told Uncle Wilmer. “And I won’t be able to breed her again until I make enough money to pay the stud fee. You know, I didn’t pay anything for the Black’s service. My old friend, Henry Dailey, arranged that for nothing. He knew I couldn’t pay. I’ll pay him back one of these days.”
“The colt will help you do that,” Tom said, helping himself to another ear of corn.
“I hope so, Tom.” Jimmy turned to Uncle Wilmer again. “Would you like the Queen, if I send her back in December?” he asked. “I’ll be able to pay you a little for her keep.”
“No need to pay me anything,” Uncle Wilmer replied, taking a long inspired reach across the table for the platter of chicken. “I’d sure like to have that mare around, all right; they don’t come none better. An’ I got a buggy in the barn; she’ll save me enough gas money to more’n keep her for nothing.”
“That’ll be good,” Jimmy said. “She’ll need the work to keep from getting soft.”
Tom’s gaze was on his plate of food. He’d miss the Queen, but he knew Jimmy was right in finding a good place for her. It would be easier weaning the colt with the mare out of sight; and then, too, it wouldn’t do her any good just to stand in her stall at Coronet. There weren’t any fields around Coronet like Uncle Wilmer’s pasture. The Queen would be happier here. And Uncle Wilmer would take good care of her; Tom was more certain of that now than ever before.
Aunt Emma had served her mincemeat pie when George said, “If I’d been judge, you’d have won first prize.”
Tom was eating his second piece when he first became aware that Jimmy had been silent a long while. Looking at him, he saw the sudden tightness come to his face; Jimmy bi
t his lower lip and Tom knew he was in pain.
“Jimmy,” he said quickly. “You all right?”
The man managed a grim smile. “Just a stomach ache; it’ll go away.” Then turning to Aunt Emma he added, “I’m not used to such good, wonderful food.” But his hand went quickly to his stomach and he held it there.
George rose from his seat to go to him, but Jimmy pushed him away. “You know it’s indigestion, George,” he said. “It’ll go in a minute.”
But George turned to Aunt Emma. “Would you have any bicarbonate of soda? It helps.”
“I have baking soda—same thing,” she said, hurrying to the corner cupboard. “Maybe he should lie down a while, Wilmer, show George where the spare bedroom is!”
Jimmy made no protest when they guided him upstairs.
An hour later Tom and George returned to find the dishes washed and his uncle and aunt sitting in their chairs.
“How is he?” Aunt Emma asked with concern.
“He’s sleeping. He’ll be all right in a little while,” George replied.
“Jimmy should see a doctor,” Aunt Emma said.
“I believe it,” Uncle Wilmer agreed.
“We have seen them,” George said, “—a couple of times in different towns. They say it’s indigestion or acid stomach an’ give him powders; bicarbonate of soda is all it is. He’s only had this stomach trouble a few times this season. The docs say it’s livin’ the way he does. Always on the go or worryin’ about something. He’ll be all right now that the racin’ season is over, I guess; it usually works that way.”
“I hope so,” Aunt Emma said. “But you keep your eye on him, Tom,” she added, turning to the boy. “You make it your job to watch Jimmy. It isn’t right he should have those pains.”
Tom nodded. “I guess I’ll go upstairs and pack,” he said. “We’ll be starting early tomorrow, won’t we, George?”
“Yeah, Tom. Jimmy wants to get back to Coronet before dark.”
“Why don’t you two sleep here tonight?” Aunt Emma offered. “We have room.”
Uncle Wilmer nodded, and Tom noticed for the first time that his uncle wasn’t having any trouble hearing what was said, even though they hadn’t raised their voices. “I’ll drive you over to the fair just as early as you want to pick up your truck and Symbol; then we can come back here for Tom and the mare an’ colt,” Uncle Wilmer said.
“All right,” George said, “if it won’t be too much trouble.”
“Trouble?” Aunt Emma asked. “It won’t be no trouble at all.”
A little later Tom finished his packing. He was closing the lid of his suitcase when the stairs creaked and Uncle Wilmer appeared at the head of the stairs.
“Just finished,” Tom said, and then he noticed the book and magazines his uncle was carrying.
“You forgot these,” Uncle Wilmer said.
Shaking his head, Tom said, “They’re yours. I’m leaving them for you.”
“You take them.” But Uncle Wilmer still held the books and magazines close.
“I want you to have them,” Tom insisted. “I have too much now to carry.”
Uncle Wilmer turned back to the stairs. “All right,” he said. “I’ll keep them for you, if you got too much already.” As he reached the top step, he turned again to Tom. “You take good care of that colt, Tom.”
“I will, Uncle Wilmer.”
“An’ you write to me, mind you, same as you did to Jimmy. I’ll want to know, all right.”
His uncle was descending the stairs when Tom called out, “Uncle Wilmer—”
“Heh?”
“I had such a good summer with you.”
“Heh?”
“I said I had such a good summer with you and Aunt Emma!” Tom shouted.
Uncle Wilmer started down the stairs again, and without turning around he said, “It was good havin’ you, Tom.” Three more steps, then he stopped and looked back at the boy. “And Tom—”
“Yes, Uncle Wilmer?”
“You git Jimmy to race the colt at Reading Fair, won’t you? I’d sure like to see him race, all right. I sure would.”
“I’ll get him to Reading some way,” Tom said. “I want you to see him, too. And it won’t be long, Uncle Wilmer. He’ll be here before you know it. Time passes fast with a colt like that. And I’ll let you know every week how he’s doing until you see him for yourself.”
THE WEANLING
10
For Tom, it was difficult getting used to Coronet again. As he walked from his home in the small mining town across fields studded with high, iron frames of wells that had plumbed the earth in search of natural gas years ago and now were forsaken for surface coal mining, he thought of his uncle’s farm with its acres of green, unravaged fields. And he missed it all very much for a while. But his days and weeks were filled with activity, so it wasn’t very long before he had forgotten the farm.
The Queen and her colt were, of course, stabled in Jimmy’s shed at the track. Every morning before school, Tom would leave his home early enough to go to the stables; there he would help George clean the stalls and feed and water Symbol, the Queen and the colt. Later in the afternoon he would return to play with the colt in the dirt paddock in back of the long sheds. He saw Jimmy Creech only on Saturdays, for Jimmy was taking it easy now that the season was over. Jimmy jogged Symbol only every other day, for the aged horse needed little work to keep in condition. And there wasn’t much to do with the colt except to continue leading him about the paddock and handling him; and Tom took care of that.
“We’ll let him nurse the mare until the middle of December,” Jimmy told Tom. “That’ll be long enough, just about six months. I don’t like to keep a colt on a mare longer’n that. Takes too much out of the mare, an’ doesn’t do the colt any good; he becomes too dependent on her. Besides, the colt is eating enough oats and hay now to keep him goin’ without the mare’s milk. He’s growing every day, Tom, isn’t he?”
And whether it was Jimmy’s enthusiasm for the colt or the regular, non-hectic life he led now, the man’s health improved considerably. Jimmy put a little weight on his small bones; he had good color in his face and his eyes were bright; there was no more stomach trouble, and as October and November passed and December came, George and Tom forgot that Jimmy had ever been sick.
The first snow fell in the middle of December and although it was only a light fall, Jimmy had Symbol’s shoes changed, putting edged shoes on him, which would hold better on the ice-spotted track. The snow made Tom think of Christmas and in his next letter to Uncle Wilmer he included the subscription to Hoof Beats magazine, which he had ordered for him. Uncle Wilmer wrote occasionally, but only to ask for more pictures of the colt and when Jimmy was sending the mare to him.
The Queen would leave for the farm any day, so Tom spent more and more time with her and the colt in the large box stall. It was crowded, for the colt was getting too big to share the Queen’s stall and to nurse her. Tom knew it was time for the colt to be weaned. He told himself over and over again while he stroked the Queen that he couldn’t ask for a better home for her than the one she’d have with Uncle Wilmer; that it was far better than staying here, for she belonged on a farm, where there would be fields of grass to roam in the spring. Coronet was a training track; it had facilities only for horses getting ready to race. And that’s why the colt belonged here; in a short time his real work would begin.
The following Saturday morning, Tom as usual was helping Jimmy and George hitch Symbol to the two-wheeled training cart in preparation for his three-mile jog on the track. He hooked the check rein from Symbol’s head, then stepped back, blowing on his fingers to warm them before putting on his gloves. It was cold in the shed and colder outside. Jimmy had his fur-lined cap pulled down about his ears and a brown muffler around his neck. George and Tom were dressed just as warmly. But Jimmy had to go outside, to sit in the training cart while the wind whistled about him.
George went to open the shed doors, an
d Tom took Symbol’s bridle.
“Tom.” It was Jimmy.
“Yes, Jimmy.” The boy turned to him, but all he could see of Jimmy was his beaked nose, for he was walking on the other side and behind Symbol.
“Come back here.”
Tom left Symbol’s head to join Jimmy. “Take these,” the man said, handing him the long lines.
“Th-the reins?”
“Lines, let’s call ’em, Tom,” he said. “You’ve been wanting to drive, haven’t you?” The tiny pinpoints of light flickered in his eyes at the incredulous look on Tom’s face. Then Jimmy turned away, saying simply, “We’ll start today, then.” He went to Symbol’s head to lead him from the barn while Tom, holding the long lines in fumbling hands, walked behind.
Jimmy stopped Symbol outside the shed, and the sharp wind coming across the track was icy cold on their faces. There were three other horses and drivers already circling the track.
Turning to George, Jimmy asked, “You figure Tom has done enough work around these stables to warrant learning to drive now, don’t you?”
George smiled. “As his Uncle Wilmer would say,” he replied, “ ‘I believe it.’ ”
“You won’t mind the cold?” Jimmy asked, turning to Tom.
The boy shook his head without saying anything.
“Get up, then, and go to it,” Jimmy said.
Tom felt awkward lifting a leg over the seat as he’d seen Jimmy and other drivers do thousands of times. The lines, too, felt clumsy in his hands, and he had trouble finding the foot stirrups on the shafts of the cart. But finally he was ready and sat tense and waiting, his eyes on Symbol’s black hindquarters and the long tail falling between his outstretched legs.
“Take the hand holds,” Jimmy said, and Tom’s hands moved forward until they had reached the loops in the lines. “Thumb and index finger over the top. That’s right, you know that. Got the end of the lines under you? You don’t want ’em trailing on the ground to get caught in your wheels.”
“I’m sitting on them good.” Tom spoke for the first time.