Phemie Frost's Experiences Part 52

Well, with our open carriage yeasting over with green, pink, white, and blue, which Dempster broke up with a lean streak of black, we rolled through the gate of the race-grounds and came up, with a magnificent sweep, to the back door of the club house, when E. E. and I gave a neat little jump, and tipped gracefully around the long stoop, right into the upper crust society of New York.

Sisters, it was like wading right into a flower-bed! Everybody there had on her good clothes--I may say, her bettermost clothes of all. Red, green, purple, blue, white, black--every color or shade of color to be found in the sky, in flowers, in fruit, or in water, rustled against each other. Sisters, it was gorgeous! But one thing struck me as peculiar--most of these female ladies had the loveliest pink color in their cheeks all the time. While my face was turning red and white, as I grew warm or comfortable, theirs kept one steady pink. Ladies with hair as yellow as gold had ink-black eyebrows and lashes--things we never see together in the country. I don't understand it. Well, we had but just got seats on the largest stoop when the people below us let off a squad of horses that seemed to fly; for the mud was soft as mush on the road, and their hoofs made no more noise than as if they had trod on velvet.

Just before these horses made their first dive, Dempster came up to us with a person who carried a white hat in his hand, and held it out as if he wanted something put into it. I thought that somebody had been cheating the poor fellow, for there was nothing but little, crumpled bits of paper in the hat. Of course I did not want to equal these treacherous people in meanness, so I took out my pocket-book and dropped a five-cent piece into the hat, smiling benignly on the good-looking suppliant as I did it. I really was ashamed of Cousin E. E.; for instead of giving the poor fellow a trifle of money, she just nipped up one of the crumpled bits of paper, and, opening it, called out, laughing like a girl:

"I've drawn the favorite! Oh, isn't that splendid!"

I declare I was mortified by such silly nonsense, and wanting to keep up the credit of the family, dropped another five-cent piece in the hat, and nodded toward E. E., as much as to say: "Never mind; I give it for her."

Instead of thanking me, the man stared and turned a trifle red, as if the grat.i.tude that filled his heart were trying to burst through his face. It was a n.o.ble feeling, and I appreciated it by another kind nod and smile.

Then he held out the hat to "that child," and she, too, s.n.a.t.c.hed up one of the papers and began to giggle over it. I declare you might have lighted a candle by my face, it burned so.

"Is there no end to such meanness?" thought I, and once more I opened my pocket-book.

"No matter, Phmie, I'll attend to that," says Cousin Dempster, waving his hand at me.

Out came his pocket-book then, and he took from it a handful of greenback-bills, which he gave to the man, who laughed as if he were half-tickled to death, and well he might be, for Dempster was as extravagant as the female portion of his family had been mean.

"Here is the last number, and our pool is complete," says he, taking a bit of paper from the hat, and dropping it into my lap. "Don't trouble yourself, Phmie, it's all right."

I did trouble myself, in spite of his smiling face. Charity is one thing, and ostentation is another. After my gift, which I must say was liberal enough, there was no need of such a display as Dempster made. No wonder the man looked pleased as he marched away, with the money in one hand, and that white hat in the other.

When the horses came rus.h.i.+ng by again, and made a sharp halt just above the house, the man came up to us choke full of pleasure, and wanted to look at my paper. I thought he was taking liberties, but gave him the mite of paper, and drew back in my seat, in proper fas.h.i.+on.

"Your horse has won," says he; "Mid-day has the race by a length."

With that he laid a roll of bills in my lap, and went away, bowing low, till his white hat almost touched the floor.

"Mercy on me! what does this mean?" says I, a-taking up the money. "Is the man crazy?"

"It means that you have won the pool," said Dempster.

Before I could ask him what on earth he meant, Cousin D. was swept off by a crowd of ladies, and three sandy-haired horses were put upon the run. I could not tell one horse from another, they were so alike; but they all were long and lank, with hind legs that looked as if all their strength lay in that direction to a wonderful extent, and the way they threw them out was surprising.

About this time I saw a great many white hats flying about, and men had pocket-books in their hands, while ladies talked wildly about gloves and neckties, and clapped their hands when the horses rushed by, and the word "pool" was in everybody's mouth--in fact, it was Bedlam let loose.

LXIX.

THE STEEPLE-CHASE.

Sisters:--This horse hurdling is something that just lifts you right off your feet. All that I had seen was nothing to what was to come. All along the winding road, and the lots each side, some men went to building fences, till every few yards were fenced in, and yet seven long-legged, long-bodied, and not over fleshy horses, with riders in white, in blue, in yellow, and striped brown and yellow, were ready for another start, which they made like a thunderburst.

On they came, flying and flas.h.i.+ng through the lots, like a flock of birds, right up to the first fence. I sprang up--everybody sprang up, wild and anxious--I expected to see the whole grist of them pitch head-foremost against the rails, when up they all rose, and away they went straight over, and off like a shot to the next and the next, clearing one after another, before you could draw a deep breath. Across lots, down the road, in and out they went, jumping fences, now abreast, now in a swift line, till they came up all at once to a pond of water.

I screamed right out, and felt myself growing cold, for they were rus.h.i.+ng toward it full split, and it was wider across than the mill-stream back of our school-house.

"Stop 'em, stop 'em! They'll be drowned, they'll be killed!" I screamed out, just crazy with fear.

No one minded me; the whole crowd was too busy watching those wild riders to mind me if I had yelled like an engine whistle. They came rus.h.i.+ng up nearer--nearer, almost in a line, as if some enemy were ahead, and the whole squad meant to ride right through and trample everything down. They were close by the water now, with a low fence that side. On they rushed--a whole cloud of hoofs ploughed up through the air, and those seven horses went shooting like sparrows over the fence and across the water. Their hoofs struck fire from the stone wall on the other side, and away they went, pell-mell, their riders shooting out colors like a broken rainbow, and the crowd cheering them on as if it had been a sham fight on training-day.

On they flew like a young whirlwind, though one bay horse they called "Blind Tom" fell short. The rider, trying to bring him up, was pitched over his head, at which the crowd was hushed, but burst out again when Blind Tom left the poor fellow behind, and dashed on with the other horses neck and neck round the fields, leaping a fence or two, before the poor stunned rider could roll over and pick himself up.

Oh, it was too droll--that plucky horse, das.h.i.+ng along with the rest, shooting over the fences, up to time, and acting like a soldier charging under command. I could just have gone down and kissed the splendid creature, and the whole crowd--thousands and thousands--set up shout after shout that you could have heard almost on the Green Mountains.

Another horse came out first best on the second round, but a couple of men, right behind me, insisted that Blind Tom ought to have the money--what money I didn't understand--but I agreed with the men, if there was anything that a horse could accept, Blind Tom was the animal for the money.

Sisters, there don't seem much that is wrong about this. You can't see any amount of deep iniquity in it, can you now? I didn't discover anything poisonous to the moral character; but then we female women don't always see deep enough into great social and religious questions, and horse-racing is one.

What do you think the gloves and neckties meant? What hidden sin lay buried under the pools? What, after all, took that great mult.i.tude up to that beautiful hollow among the hills? Gambling, my dear; male and female gambling, nothing more, nothing less. The horses run for money.

The jockeys ride for money. The men bet money, hats, gloves, hundreds, thousands, on this horse and that. Everybody gambles, and everybody likes it.

Sisters, that poor man's hat was a pool; there wasn't a drop of water in it; still it was a pool. The two five-cent pieces I threw into it were a dead loss to charity. The sc.r.a.ps of crumpled paper meant dollars. The heap of bills that I tucked away in my pocket-book, innocent as twenty lambs, was money that I had won gambling, ignorantly, innocently.

With Christianity at my heart, and gambling money in my pocket, I feel demoralized as a church member; yet I must confess it exhilated me as if I had been on the top of a high mountain, and was looking down with delicious dizziness. I a gambler, I a diver into pools no larger than a man's hat, but dangerous as the bottomless pit! I cannot realize it; and when realized, it seems to me as if I couldn't be properly penitent.

That sort of thing doesn't seem so awful to me as it did before I got into it, in this pleasant, innocent, and sweetly promiscuous manner.

Is this "rolling sin like a sweet morsel under the tongue"? Am I getting faithless to the trust with which I set forth on this city mission?

This much I will say in my own behalf: horse-racing, if pernicious, is awfully pleasant, and horse-betting (gloves and neckties I mean) is--well--ditto.

_Such_ a ride home as we had! Trees and gra.s.s, cool and green--no dust.

The sun going down, and throwing red shadows across the fields.

Carriages crowded full of smiling people, horses wild to pa.s.s each other and get home; yourself deliciously tired, with half a dozen swift horses chasing each other through your brain, and trampling down your conscience.

Well, sisters, I may have been wrong, but frankness is my peculiarity, and I should like to try it all over again, just once. Don't think hard of it, but I should.

LXX.

PREPARING FOR SEA.

Dear Sisters:--With an aching head and bitter taste in my mouth, I take up my pen to write. Myself, and not myself, I sit here as if I had just come out of the upheaving of an earthquake. If I write anything of what happened yesterday, it must be sensational; for, of all sensations that ever riled up a human const.i.tution, that I felt while out to sea beat all that I ever knew or heard of.

I have been out to a yacht race.

Horse-racing is a science not unknown, in its rudiments, to our rural population. You can remember when we took our first lessons, bareback, with a rope-halter looped around the horse's nose for a bridle. No--that was our second lesson; the first was on father's old grey horse, which was blind of one eye, and had a natural saddle curved into his back.

Being a mite of a child, I sat in that hollow like a bird in its nest, hung on to the mane with one hand, and held a crooked stick before the eye that could see when I wanted the creature to turn. In this way I began my horse-alphabet. First, we waded through the plantains and burdocks, at a slow walk, with a stumble now and then, which set my little heart to quaking like a swampy bog trod upon. Then I grew venturesome, and the old grey warmed into a soft trot, which shook me up like anything, but was more exhilarating than the walk. With my bare feet pressed close to the animal's side and my fingers gripped into his mane, I began to rattle my stick timidly against his shoulder; at which he broke trot and racked himself off into a canter, which made my heart leap with every fall of his hoofs, and filled it with the courage of a trooper.

Didn't we wade through the burdocks and sweet ferns then! Didn't we ride round and round that pasture lot, without giving the dear old beast time for a bite of gra.s.s or a fair nip at the sweet ferns! Didn't my crooked stick rattle and my hair fly out in the wind! Didn't my mother scream after me, and my father rush out like a crazy man, with both arms spread out, and try to head Old Grey off! Of course he did. But the dear old horse didn't want to give up, and I didn't mean that he should; so he s.h.i.+ed, and, of course, having nothing to hold him in by but the tuft of hair and the stick, he left father behind, and, I do believe, kicked up a trifle, just to show his independence.