The Day's Work Part 9

Again Rod stuck out his jaws sidewise, and went on slowly, as though he were slugging on a plain bit at the end of a thirty-mile drive:

"I want all you here ter understand thet ther ain't no Kansas, ner no Kentucky, ner yet no Vermont, in our business. There's jest two kind o' horse in the United States--them ez can an' will do their work after bein' properly broke an' handled, an' them as won't. I'm sick an' tired o' this everlastin' tail-switchin' an' wickerin' abaout one State er another. A horse kin be proud o' his State, an' swap lies abaout it in stall or when he's. .h.i.tched to a block, ef he keers to put in fly-time that way; but he hain't no right to let that pride o' hisn interfere with his work, ner to make it an excuse fer claimin' he's different.

That's colts' talk, an' don't you fergit it, Tweezy. An', Marcus, you remember that hem' a philosopher, an' anxious to save trouble,--fer you ate,--don't excuse you from jumpin' with all your feet on a slack-jawed, crazy clay-bank like Boney here. It's leavin' 'em alone that gives 'em their chance to ruin colts an' kill folks. An', Tuck, waal, you're a mare anyways--but when a horse comes along an' covers up all his talk o'

killin' with ripplin' brooks, an wavin gra.s.s, an' eight quarts of oats a day free, after killn' his man, don't you be run away with by his yap.

You're too young an' too nervous."

"I'll--I'll have nervous prostration sure ef there's a fight here," said Tuck, who saw what was in Rod's eye; "I'm--I'm that sympathetic I'd run away clear to next caounty."

"Yep; I know that kind o' sympathy. Jest lasts long enough to start a fuss, an' then lights aout to make new trouble. I hain't been ten years in harness fer nuthin'. Naow, we're goin' to keep school with Boney fer a spell."

"Say, look a-here, you ain't goin' to hurt me, are you? Remember, I belong to a man in town," cried the yellow horse, uneasily. Muldoon kept behind him so that he could not run away.

"I know it. There must be some pore delooded fool in this State hez a right to the loose end o' your hitchin'-strap. I'm blame sorry fer him, but he shall hev his rights when we're through with you," said Rod.

"If it's all the same, gentlemen, I'd ruther change pasture. Guess I'll do it now."

"'Can't always have your 'druthers. 'Guess you won't," said Rod.

"But look a-here. All of you ain't so blame unfriendly to a stranger.

S'pose we count noses."

"What in Vermont fer?" said Rod, putting up his eyebrows. The idea of settling a question by counting noses is the very last thing that ever enters the head of a well-broken horse.

"To see how many's on my side. Here's Miss Tuck, anyway; an' Colonel Tweezy yonder's neutral; an' Judge Marcus, an' I guess the Reverend [the yellow horse meant the Deacon] might see that I had my rights. He's the likeliest-lookin' Trotter I've ever set eyes on. Pshaw. Boys. You ain't goin' to pound me, be you? Why, we've gone round in pasture, all colts together, this month o' Sundays, hain't we, as friendly as could be.

There ain't a horse alive I don't care who he is--has a higher opinion o' you, Mr. Rod, than I have. Let's do it fair an' true an' above the exe. Let's count noses same's they do in Kansas." Here he dropped his voice a little and turned to Marcus: "Say, Judge, there's some green food I know, back o' the brook, no one hain't touched yet. After this little fracas is fixed up, you an' me'll make up a party an' 'tend to it."

Marcus did not answer for a long time, then he said: "There's a pup up to the haouse 'bout eight weeks old. He'll yap till he gits a lickin', an' when he sees it comin' he lies on his back, an' yowls. But he don't go through no cirkituous nose-countin' first. I've seen a noo light sence Rod spoke. You'll better stand up to what's served. I'm goin' to philosophise all over your carca.s.s."

"I'm goin' to do yer up in brown paper," said Muldoon. "I can fit you on apologies."

"Hold on. Ef we all biffed you now, these same men you've been so dead anxious to kill 'u'd call us off. 'Guess we'll wait till they go back to the haouse, an' you'll have time to think cool an' quiet," said Rod.

"Have you no respec' whatever fer the dignity o' our common horsehood?"

the yellow horse squealed.

"Nary respec' onless the horse kin do something. America's paved with the kind er horse you are--jist plain yaller-dog horse--waitin' ter be whipped inter shape. We call 'em yearlings an' colts when they're young.

When they're aged we pound 'em--in this pastur'. Horse, sonny, is what you start from. We know all about horse here, an' he ain't any high-toned, pure souled child o' nature. Horse, plain horse, same ez you, is chock-full o' tricks, an' meannesses, an' cussednesses, an'

s.h.i.+rkin's, an' monkey-s.h.i.+nes, which he's took over from his sire an'

his dam, an' thickened up with his own special fancy in the way o' goin'

crooked. Thet's horse, an' thet's about his dignity an' the size of his soul 'fore he's been broke an' rawhided a piece. Now we ain't goin' to give ornery unswitched horse, that hain't done nawthin' wuth a quart of oats sence he wuz foaled, pet names that would be good enough fer Nancy Hanks, or Alix, or Dir.e.c.t.u.m, who hev. Don't you try to back off acrost them rocks. Wait where you are! Ef I let my Hambletonian temper git the better o' me I'd frazzle you out finer than rye-straw inside o' three minutes, you woman-scarin', kid-killin', dash-breakin', unbroke, unshod, ungaited, pastur'-hoggin', saw-backed, shark-mouthed, hair-trunk-thrown-in-in-trade son of a bronco an' a sewin'-machine!"

"I think we'd better get home," I said to my companion, when Rod had finished; and we climbed into the coupe, Tedda whinnying, as we b.u.mped over the ledges: "Well, I'm dreffle sorry I can't stay fer the sociable; but I hope an' trust my friends'll take a ticket fer me."

"Bet your natchul!" said Muldoon, cheerfully, and the horses scattered before us, trotting into the ravine.

Next morning we sent back to the livery-stable what was left of the yellow horse. It seemed tired, but anxious to go.

THE s.h.i.+P THAT FOUND HERSELF

It was her first voyage, and though she was but a cargo-steamer of twenty-five hundred tons, she was the very best of her kind, the outcome of forty years of experiments and improvements in framework and machinery; and her designers and owner thought as much of her as though she had been the Lucania. Any one can make a floating hotel that will pay expenses, if he puts enough money into the saloon, and charges for private baths, suites of rooms, and such like; but in these days of compet.i.tion and low freights every square inch of a cargo-boat must be built for cheapness, great hold-capacity, and a certain steady speed.

This boat was, perhaps, two hundred and forty feet long and thirty-two feet wide, with arrangements that enabled her to carry cattle on her main and sheep on her upper deck if she wanted to; but her great glory was the amount of cargo that she could store away in her holds. Her owners--they were a very well known Scotch firm--came round with her from the north, where she had been launched and christened and fitted, to Liverpool, where she was to take cargo for New York; and the owner's daughter, Miss Frazier, went to and fro on the clean decks, admiring the new paint and the bra.s.s work, and the patent winches, and particularly the strong, straight bow, over which she had cracked a bottle of champagne when she named the steamer the Dimbula. It was a beautiful September afternoon, and the boat in all her newness--she was painted lead-colour with a red funnel--looked very fine indeed. Her house-flag was flying, and her whistle from time to time acknowledged the salutes of friendly boats, who saw that she was new to the High and Narrow Seas and wished to make her welcome.

"And now," said Miss Frazier, delightedly, to the captain, "she's a real s.h.i.+p, isn't she? It seems only the other day father gave the order for her, and now--and now--isn't she a beauty!" The girl was proud of the firm, and talked as though she were the controlling partner.

"Oh, she's no so bad," the skipper replied cautiously. "But I'm sayin'

that it takes more than christenin' to mak' a s.h.i.+p. In the nature o'

things, Miss Frazier, if ye follow me, she's just irons and rivets and plates put into the form of a s.h.i.+p. She has to find herself yet."

"I thought father said she was exceptionally well found."

"So she is," said the skipper, with a laugh. "But it's this way wi'

s.h.i.+ps, Miss Frazier. She's all here, but the parrts of her have not learned to work together yet. They've had no chance."

"The engines are working beautifully. I can hear them."

"Yes, indeed. But there's more than engines to a s.h.i.+p. Every inch of her, ye'll understand, has to be livened up and made to work wi' its neighbour--sweetenin' her, we call it, technically."

"And how will you do it?" the girl asked.

"We can no more than drive and steer her and so forth; but if we have rough weather this trip--it's likely--she'll learn the rest by heart!

For a s.h.i.+p, ye'll obsairve, Miss Frazier, is in no sense a reegid body closed at both ends. She's a highly complex structure o' various an'

conflictin' strains, wi' tissues that must give an' tak' accordin' to her personal modulus of elasteecity." Mr. Buchanan, the chief engineer, was coming towards them. "I'm sayin' to Miss Frazier, here, that our little Dimbula has to be sweetened yet, and nothin' but a gale will do it. How's all wi' your engines, Buck?"

"Well enough--true by plumb an' rule, o' course; but there's no spontaneeity yet." He turned to the girl. "Take my word, Miss Frazier, and maybe ye'll comprehend later; even after a pretty girl's christened a s.h.i.+p it does not follow that there's such a thing as a s.h.i.+p under the men that work her."

"I was sayin' the very same, Mr. Buchanan," the skipper interrupted.

"That's more metaphysical than I can follow," said Miss Frazier, laughing.

"Why so? Ye're good Scotch, an'--I knew your mother's father, he was fra' Dumfries--ye've a vested right in metapheesics, Miss Frazier, just as ye have in the Dimbula," the engineer said.

"Eh, well, we must go down to the deep watters, an' earn Miss Frazier her deevidends. Will you not come to my cabin for tea?" said the skipper. "We'll be in dock the night, and when you're goin' back to Glasgie ye can think of us loadin' her down an' drivin' her forth--all for your sake."

In the next few days they stowed some four thousand tons dead-weight into the Dimbula, and took her out from Liverpool. As soon as she met the lift of the open water, she naturally began to talk. If you lay your ear to the side of the cabin, the next time you are in a steamer, you will hear hundreds of little voices in every direction, thrilling and buzzing, and whispering and popping, and gurgling and sobbing and squeaking exactly like a telephone in a thunder-storm. Wooden s.h.i.+ps shriek and growl and grunt, but iron vessels throb and quiver through all their hundreds of ribs and thousands of rivets. The Dimbula was very strongly built, and every piece of her had a letter or a number, or both, to describe it; and every piece had been hammered, or forged, or rolled, or punched by man, and had lived in the roar and rattle of the s.h.i.+pyard for months. Therefore, every piece had its own separate voice, in exact proportion to the amount of trouble spent upon it. Cast-iron, as a rule, says very little; but mild steel plates and wrought-iron, and ribs and beams that have been much bent and welded and riveted, talk continuously. Their conversation, of course, is not half as wise as our human talk, because they are all, though they do not know it, bound down one to the other in a black darkness, where they cannot tell what is happening near them, nor what will overtake them next.

As soon as she had cleared the Irish coast, a sullen, grey-headed old wave of the Atlantic climbed leisurely over her straight bows, and sat down on the steam-capstan used for hauling up the anchor. Now the capstan and the engine that drove it had been newly painted red and green; besides which, n.o.body likes being ducked.

"Don't you do that again," the capstan sputtered through the teeth of his cogs. "Hi! Where's the fellow gone?"

The wave had slouched overside with a plop and a chuckle; but "Plenty more where he came from," said a brother-wave, and went through and over the capstan, who was bolted firmly to an iron plate on the iron deck-beams below.

"Can't you keep still up there?" said the deckbeams. "What's the matter with you? One minute you weigh twice as much as you ought to, and the next you don't!"

"It isn't my fault," said the capstan. "There's a green brute outside that comes and hits me on the head."