CHAPTER II
"Baltie"
"When he's forsaken Withered and shaken What can an old _horse_ Do but die?"
(With apologies to Tom Hood.)
For one moment Jean stood petrified, too overcome by the sight to stiror speak, then with a low, pitying cry of:
"Oh, Baltie, Baltie! How came you there?" the child tossed herumbrella aside and scrambled down into the ditch, the water whichstood in it splashing and flying all over her, as she hastened towardthe prone horse.
At the sound of her voice the poor creature raised his head which hadbeen drooping forward upon his bent-up knees, turned his sightlesseyes toward her and tried to nicker, but succeeded only in making aquavering, shivering sound.
"Oh, Baltie, dear, dear Baltie, how did you get out of your stable andcome way off here?" cried the girl taking the pathetic old head intoher arms, and drawing it to her breast regardless of the mud withwhich it was thickly plastered. "You got out of the field through thatbroken place in the fence up there didn't you dear? And you must havetumbled right straight down the bank into this ditch, 'cause you'reall splashed over with mud, poor, poor Baltie. And your legs are allcut and bleeding too. Oh, how long have you been here? You couldn'tsee where you were going, could you? You poor, dear thing. Oh, whatshall I do for you? What shall I? If I could only help you up," andthe dauntless little body tugged with all her might and main to raisethe fallen animal. She might as well have striven to raise Gibraltar,for, even though the horse strove to get upon his feet, he was far tooweak and exhausted to do so, and again dropped heavily to the ground,nearly over-setting his intrepid little friend as he sank down.
Jean was in despair. What _should_ she do? To go on to her friendAmy's and leave the old horse to the chance of someone else's tendermercies never entered her head, and had any one been near at hand tosuggest that solution of the problem he would have promptly foundhimself in the midst of a small tornado of righteous wrath. No, herelay misery incarnate right before her eyes and, of course, she mustinstantly set about relieving it. But how?
"Baltie," or Old Baltimore, as the horse was called, belonged to theRaulsbury's. Everybody within a radius of twenty miles knew him; knewalso that the family had brought him to the place when they came therefrom the suburbs of Baltimore more than twenty years ago. Brought hima high-stepping, fiery, thoroughbred colt which was the admiration andenvy of all Riveredge. John Raulsbury, the grandfather, was his ownerthen, and drove him until his death, when "Baltimore" was seventeenyears old; even that was an advanced age for a horse. From the momentof Grandfather Raulsbury's death Baltimore began to fail and lose hishigh spirits. Some people insisted that he was grieving for the friendof his colt-hood and the heyday of life, but Jabe Raulsbury, the son,said "the horse was gettin' played out. What could ye expect when hewas more'n seventeen years old?"
So Baltimore became "Old Baltie," and his fate the plow, the dirtcart, the farm wagon. His box-stall, fine grooming, and fine harnesswere things of the past. "The barn shed's good 'nough fer such an oldskate's he's gettin' ter be," said Jabe, and Jabe's son, a shiftlessnonentity, agreed with him.
So that was blue-blooded Baltie's fate, but even such misfortunefailed to break his spirit, and now and again, while ploddinghopelessly along the road, dragging the heavy farm wagon, he wouldraise his head, prick up his ears, and plunge ahead, forgetful of histwenty years, when he heard a speedy step behind him. But, alas! hissudden sprint always came to a most humiliating end, for his strengthhad failed rapidly during the past few years, and the eyes, once soalert and full of fire, were sadly clouded, making steps veryuncertain. An ugly stumble usually ended in a cruel jerk upon thestill sensitive mouth and poor old Baltie was reduced to thehumiliating plod once more.
Yet, through it all he retained his sweet, high-bred disposition,accepting his altered circumstances like the gentleman he was, andnever retaliating upon those who so misused him. During histwenty-third year he became totally blind, and when rheumatism, theoutcome of the lack of proper stabling and care, added to hismiseries, poor Baltie was almost turned adrift; the shed was there, tobe sure, and when he had time to think about it, Jabe dumped some feedinto the manger and threw a bundle of straw upon the floor. But forthe greater part of the time Baltie had to shift for himself as besthe could.
During the past summer he had been the talk of an indignant town, andmore than one threatening word had been spoken regarding the man'streatment of the poor old horse.
For a moment the little girl stood in deep, perplexing thought, thensuddenly her face lighted up and her expressive eyes sparkled with thethoughts which lay behind them.
"I know what I'll do, Baltie: I'll go straight up to Jabe Raulsbury'sand _make_ him come down and take care of you. Good-bye, dear; I won'tbe any time at all 'cause I'll go right across the fields," and givingthe horse a final encouraging stroke, she caught up her umbrella whichhad meantime been resting handle uppermost up in a mud-puddle, andscrambling up the bank which had been poor Baltie's undoing,disappeared beneath the tumble-down fence and was off across thepasture heedless of all obstacles.
Jabe Raulsbury's farm had once been part of Riveredge, but one by onehis broad acres had been sold so that now only a small section of theoriginal farmstead remained to him, and this was a constant eyesore tohis neighbors, owing to its neglected condition, for beautiful homeshad been erected all about it upon the acres he had sold at such alarge profit. Several good offers had been made him for his propertyby those who would gladly have bought the land simply to have improvedtheir own places and thus add to the attraction of that section ofRiveredge. But no; not another foot of his farm would Jabe Raulsburysell, and if ever dog-in-the-manger was fully demonstrated it was bythis parsimonious irascible man whom no one respected and manyheartily despised.
This wild, wet afternoon he was seated upon a stool just within theshelter of his barn sorting over a pile of turnips which lay upon thefloor near him. He was not an attractive figure, to say the least, ashe bent over the work. Cadaverous, simply because he was tooparsimonious to provide sufficient nourishing food to meet the demandsof such a huge body. Unkempt, grizzled auburn hair and grizzled auburnbeard, the latter sparse enough to disclose the sinister mouth. Eyesabout the color of green gooseberries and with about as muchexpression.
As he sat there tossing into the baskets before him the sorted-outturnips, he became aware of rapidly approaching footsteps, and raisedhis head just as a small figure came hurrying around the corner of thebarn, for the scramble up the steep bank, and rapid walk across thewet pastures, had set Jean's heart a-beating, and that, coupled withher indignation, caused her to pant. She had gone first to the house,but had there learned from Mrs. Raulsbury, a timid, nervous,woefully-dominated individual, who looked and acted as though shescarcely dared call her soul her own, that "Jabe was down yonder inthe far-barn sortin' turnips." So down to the "far-barn" went Jean.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Raulsbury," she began, her heart, it must beconfessed, adding, rather than lessening its number of beats, atconfronting the forbidding expression of the individual with whom shewas passing the time of day.
"Huh!" grunted Jabe Raulsbury, giving her one searching look frombetween his narrowing eyelids, and then resuming his work. Mostchildren would have been discouraged and dropped the conversation thenand there. Jean's lips took on a firmer curve.
"I guess after all it _isn't_ a good afternoon, is it? It is a prettywet, horrid one, and not a very nice one to be out in, is it?"
"Wul, why don't ye go home then?" was the gruff retort.
"Because I have an important matter to 'tend to. I was on my way tovisit Amy Fletcher; her cat is sick! he was hurt dreadfully yesterday;she thinks somebody must have tried to shoot him and missed him, forhis shoulder is all torn. If anybody _did_ do such a thing to Bunnythey'd ought to be ashamed of it, for he's a dear. If _I_ knew who haddone it I'd--I'd--."
"Wal, what _would_ ye do to 'em, heh?" and a wicked, tantalizing grinoverspread Jabe Rauls
bury's face.
"Do? Do? I believe I'd scratch his eyes out; I'd hate him so, forbeing so cruel!" was the fiery, unexpected reply.
"Do tell! Would ye now, really? Mebbe it's jist as well fer him thatye don't know the feller that did it then," remarked Raulsbury,although he gave a slight hitch to the stool upon which he was sittingas he said it, thus widening the space between them.
"Well I believe I _would_, for I _despise_ a coward, and only a cowardcould do such a thing."
"Huh," was the response to this statement. Then silence for a momentwas broken by the man who asked:
"Wal, why don't ye go along an' see if the cat's kilt. It aint_here_."
"No, I know _that_, but I have found something more important to 'tendto, and that's why I came up here, and it's something you ought toknow about too: Old Baltie has tumbled down the bank at the place inthe pasture where the fence is broken, and is in the ditch. I don'tknow how long he's been there, but he's all wet, and muddy and shiveryand he can't get up. I came up to tell you, so's you could get a manto help you and go right down and get him out. I tried, but I wasn'tstrong enough, but he'll die if you don't go quick."
Jean's eyes shone and her cheeks were flushed from excitement as shedescribed Baltie's plight, and paused only because breath failed her.
"Wal, 'spose he does; what then? What good is he to anybody? He's mosttwenty-five year old an' clear played-out. He'd better die; it's thebest thing could happen."
The shifty eyes had not rested upon the child while the man wasspeaking, but some powerful magnetism drew and held them to her deepblazing ones as the last word fell from his lips. He tried to withdrawthem, ejected a mouthful of tobacco juice at one particular spot whichfrom appearances had been so favored many times before, drew his handacross his mouth and then gave a self-conscious, snickering laugh.
"I don't believe you understood what I said, did you?" asked Jeanquietly. "I'm sure you didn't."
"Oh yis I did. Ye said old Baltie was down in the ditch yonder andlike ter die if I didn't git him out. Wal, that's jist 'zactly what Iwant him _to_ do, an' jest 'zactly what I turned him out inter thatfield fer him ter do, an' jist 'zactly what I hope he _will_ do 'foremorning. He's got the last ounce o' fodder I'm ever a'goin' ter givehim, an' I aint never a'goin' ter let him inter my barns agin. Now put_that_ in yer pipe an' smoke it, an' then git out durned quick."
Jabe Raulsbury had partially risen from his stool as he concluded thiscreditable tirade, and one hand was raised threateningly toward thelittle figure standing with her dripping umbrella just within thethreshold of the barn door.
That the burly figure did not rise entirely, and that his handremained suspended without the threatened blow falling can perhapsbest be explained by the fact that the child before him neverflinched, and that the scorn upon her face was so intense that itcould be felt.