Man of the Family

  I think she was going to have said more, but Hi cut in, “There ain’t no call to fret, Miz Moody,” he said. “We ain’t goin’ to let nothin’ happen to him, and Tommie Brogan’s ridin’ in the trick class with me. Little Britches here ain’t even registered in the class. But it’s hunky-dory if he rides a couple of races? The boys would sure like that.”

  “Why, of course he may,” Mother said. “And how I’d love to come down and watch him if the baby were old enough to take out. Hi, do you still remember the first day you put Ralph on a horse?”

  Hi looked up at her and grinned. “I sure do, and you was sure scairt, wasn’t you?”

  Mother just laughed, and said, “There, these fritters are all ready, and so is the coffee.”

  I wanted to hug everybody, and I almost forgot to tell Hi “Thank you” for the boots.

  Mother poured Hi’s coffee and set the cup down by his plate. Then she set one down by my plate, too. It was mostly milk, but there was enough coffee in it to make it brownish—it was the first I’d ever had at home.

  I knew Hi must have already had breakfast by that time in the morning, but he ate four or five corn fritters and drank three cups of coffee. Just before he left, Mother brought Elizabeth out from her cradle. I don’t think Hi knew much about babies. He moved his finger in front of her face as if she were a horse he was checking for blindness. “Smart, ain’t she?” he said. “Look at how her eyes is follerin’ my finger.”

  Hi held his hat in both hands till he had backed down off the doorsteps. Then he made sort of a little bow toward Mother, and said, “That was sure a right fine breakfast. Them fried cakes was the best I had since I left Texas.”

  Hi’s coming to see us pleased Mother as much as it did me. We all went out on the well platform and waved to him as he rode away. Then Mother sat down on the top kitchen step, and said, “Isn’t it nice to have a good friend like Hi? . . . And he is so proud of you, Son. Just think of his getting those reserved seats so that I might see how well you ride. You tell him how sorry I am that I won’t be able to go.”

  Then she turned to Grace, and said, “Gracie, you will have to take my place today. Let’s get the children ready while Ralph and Philip put the back seat on the wagon. Then you could all drive down together. You girls could take the bottom layer of Hi’s box of candy.”

  The roundup didn’t start till noon, but we got down there by eleven o’clock. I wore my cowboy clothes and my new boots, but all the others wore their Sunday-school things. Grace was as proud as a peacock to take Mother’s place—and have reserved seats and a box of candy. Of course, I didn’t need a seat because I’d be with Hi and the other riders, so Grace invited Mrs. Snow and Eva to sit with her. Mrs. Snow had Eva buy enough peanuts and popcorn for all of us, and Grace gave them candy out of Hi’s box.

  Sometimes a show gets started all by itself. That is what ours did on Labor Day. Ed Bemis was the secretary of the roundup, and Katherine Prescott was his girl. Women never went into the infield where they kept the broncos and the bulldogging steers, but Ed took his girl and some of her friends out there just before the first event. I really think it was so they could show off their pretty clothes. The girls all had on long white dresses and carried little parasols, and Katherine was wearing a white mushroom hat—it was nearly as big around as a wash-tub. Just as they were all parading past the bullpens, a longhorn steer jumped out over the poles.

  Parasols went flying in every direction, and the girls pulled their dresses clear up to their knees as they ran for the fence. Some of them dived under the bottom rail, and some of them crawled between. Katherine’s hat was too big to go either way; and when she came out feet-first, the hat stuck in the rails. In less than two seconds, the steer hooked his horns through it and went tearing around the infield, making his own fashion parade.

  I rode Mr. Batchlett’s chestnut in the bareback race, but I didn’t win. An Indian boy on a mustang beat me by half a length. Hi rode in the trick class and calf roping, and he had worse luck than I did. Tommie Brogan missed a handhold on the pickup trick; and in the roping class, Hi’s calf stumbled and fell just as Hi made his throw—the judge didn’t even call his time.

  I took Fred Aultland’s bay out of the corral and warmed him up, bareback, at the north end of the grandstand. That way, I could watch the broncobusting at the same time. I kept worrying about Hi. If a rider starts off in a roundup with bad luck, it will sometimes follow him all the way through. Once in a while, a bronco would only crow-hop, and a buster wouldn’t have any chance to show how good he was. And there was always a chance of being dragged with a foot in the stirrup, or of a horse falling on the buster. It seemed as though that would be just about Hi’s luck—after Tom missing the handhold and the calf stumbling.

  As I watched, Hi came out of chute two, on Old Steamboat, and they came out boiling. You’d have thought the seat of his pants was glued onto that saddle. He was raking Steamboat from shoulder to hip at every pitch, and fanning his hat so hard it looked as though he were trying to put out a fire in the old bronc’s ears. Steamboat couldn’t have been any crazier if there had been a fire in them. When the ten-second whistle blew, he was flying around like a wildcat on a hot stove, and his heels were kicking in every direction. Ted Ebberts couldn’t get within twenty feet of him, but Hi never stopped raking and fanning till Steamboat crossed his feet.

  It happened so quick that I didn’t have time to catch my breath before it was over. Steamboat somersaulted. Dust flew as though there’d been an explosion. Then Steamboat started to get up—but Hi didn’t.

  My heart tried to jump out of my mouth. Then I was on the ground, running toward Hi. I’d just ducked under the track fence when Sheriff McGrath’s horse knocked me down. My legs wouldn’t work, and I just sat there on the track as the sheriff raced in front of the grandstand, yelling, “Are they a doctor here? Are they a doctor here?”

  Then Hi rolled over on his stomach and pulled up onto his feet. You should have heard the crowd holler as he waved his hat and walked back across the infield.

  On Labor Day, the hundred-dollar race was run at a half mile. That was once around the track, so we lined up at the center of the grandstand. There were twelve of us in the race—most of them were horses and riders I’d never seen before. Some of them raised Cain in the lineup. Fred’s bay was fidgety, and I had a little trouble holding him at the line.

  The starting gun banged when the bay was rearing, and we didn’t get a good start. At the first turn we were in the middle of the pack and couldn’t get close to the rail. And we were boxed tight, going into the backstretch. I didn’t have to be very smart to see that it had been planned that way. The riders around me—one on each side and one in front—started pulling their horses in so the field could pass us.

  I didn’t think I could ever get out. There wasn’t six inches of room between the heads of the horses beside me and the hips of the buckskin in front. I grabbed the lines short with one hand and stretched way up along the bay’s neck—talking into his ear until I got his nose right up against the lead horse’s rump. Then I yelled and cut my whip down across that buckskin’s rump. I don’t think I yelled, either: I shrieked. And those horses spread out like tumbleweeds in a wind.

  Fred’s bay lengthened his stride a foot, and we were past the buckskin before I needed to pull against the rail for the far turn. At the head of the stretch, we were still a length and a half behind Mr. Batchlett’s sorrel, and I cut my whip down across the bay’s back. That was the only time I hit him, and the only time I needed to. He pinned his ears tight, and I kept him out far enough that I was sure he couldn’t get a whip across his face. At the finish line we were nearly in the center of the strip, and I wasn’t sure we’d won till I heard the crowd yelling my name.

  All the fellows from out around our old ranch were waiting for me at the track gate, and they all shook hands with me. Fred Aultland was the last one. Just before he led the bay away to cool him, he reached his hand out to me—and the
re was a ten-dollar gold piece in it.

  I hardly stopped to thank him, but went running down to where Lady was hitched behind the grandstand. I’d never had a chance to take Mother any of the money I’d earned in races, and I could only think about wanting to show her the gold piece. I even forgot about Grace and the other children.

  It’s funny how you seem to love somebody—somebody that you really love—so much more at one time than at another. Or maybe it’s just that it bubbles over once in a while. I guess that’s what happened to Mother and me when I got home. At first, I forgot all about showing her the gold piece, and just hugged her around the neck. But she knew I’d won, just as well as if she’d been at the fairgrounds. She squeezed me up tight in her arms and kissed me on my neck and the side of my face. In between, she kept telling me she was proud of me and that I was going to look just like my father.

  16

  Kathleen Mavourneen

  THAT year I went into the seventh grade. Our room was up on the second floor of the schoolhouse, and we had a real nice teacher—but I didn’t like her very well that first day. As soon as they opened the schoolhouse doors I ducked in and ran all the way up the stairs, so I could get a seat at the back of the room with the big fellows, but Miss Curtis wouldn’t let me keep it. She said I’d be lost at one of the big desks, and made me move almost up to the front of the class—right in the middle of a bunch of girls.

  Eva Snow sat in front of me. She had two of the thickest pigtails I ever saw on a little girl. I didn’t like having to sit up there with the smaller girls, and I wasn’t paying very much attention while Miss Curtis was calling the roll and telling us that she wouldn’t put up with any misbehavior. The first thing I knew I was counting the spots on the back of Eva’s neck between the braids. They weren’t freckles, they were speckles; just little dots, as if somebody had splattered the back of her neck with red ink. I was just up to eighty-six when Miss Curtis said, “Ralph, where are the Himalayas?” She said it like Him-mall-ya, and I’d always heard them called the Him-a-lay-as, so I didn’t know what she was talking about. I didn’t even know we’d started having a geography lesson, and before I ever thought, I said, “I don’t know. I haven’t seen them.” And I was still trying to keep track of the place where I left off counting the dots on Eva’s neck.

  Everybody laughed except Miss Curtis and me. She spanked her hands together so hard it sounded like a firecracker, and when I looked up, her face was as red as a thorn apple. Then she got up from her chair and started toward my aisle. Her eyes were looking right straight at mine all the time, and she walked slowly. I didn’t know what she was going to do to me, but she looked as though she might be going to wring my neck. I don’t believe anyone else in the class even breathed, and all I could hear was the click of Miss Curtis’ heels and the pounding of my own heart.

  I couldn’t seem to take my eyes off hers until she was standing right beside my desk. Then she reached down and pulled me out of it by one of the shoulder straps of my overalls—just the way she’d have pulled a rabbit out of a hole. She didn’t raise her voice and she didn’t make any move to slap me as most teachers would have if they’d been that mad. She just stood me down in front of her, with one hand still holding onto the strap of my overalls. She put the other one on top of my head and turned my face up toward hers. “I think we’d better understand each other right at the beginning,” she said. “I know you’ve had every chance to be spoiled by some of the men around town, but we’re not going to have any spoiled boys acting smart in this class.”

  It wasn’t like a scolding—she was just telling me. If she’d slapped me or scolded me it wouldn’t have bothered so much, but there was something about the way she spoke that made a lump come up in my throat. “I wasn’t trying to be smart,” I said; “I just didn’t know what it was you asked me about.”

  “That was very evident,” she said, “and that’s just why I called on you. If you’d been paying more attention to your lesson and hadn’t been staring so hard at Eva’s braids you’d have known what I asked. Now, in what country are the Him . . .”

  As she was speaking she let her hand slide off my head, and leaned farther over toward Eva. She seemed to be trying to count the red dots herself. “Eva!” she said. “Are you feeling well? Do you have a rash anywhere except on the back of your neck? Has your throat been sore?”

  “It was sore when I woke up this morning. I’ve got an itch on my chest; I guess it’s from this wool dress.”

  Miss Curtis forgot all about the Himalaya Mountains, and started to unbutton the collar of Eva’s dress. In a minute she straightened up and said, “Class is dismissed. It may be several days before this term will commence for the seventh grade. And, Eva, I’d like you to wait a few minutes while I write a note to your mother.”

  As soon as Miss Curtis said class was dismissed, I hurried right home, but I forgot to tell Mother anything about the spots on Eva’s neck. I just said the seventh grade wasn’t going to commence for two or three days. Then I took Lady and rode out to where there’d nearly been a wreck on the railroad a few days before. A brace rod on a freight car had broken a couple of miles south of Littleton, and caught in the crossties. Before they stopped the train, it had plowed a chunk out of every tie for two hundred yards. I knew they’d all have to be taken out, and Mr. Carey had told me he’d pay ten cents apiece for all the ties I could bring him.

  I knew the section boss on the Colorado and Southern. He was an old Mexican, and he was my friend. Though he was supposed to burn every tie they took out of the tracks, he’d always let me take what I wanted before burning the rest. But I’d never taken any ties without asking him first. As I rode out from Littleton, the only thing that worried me was how to get the ties from the C. & S. tracks to the wagon road.

  The Denver and Rio Grande tracks ran close to the road, and the Colorado and Southern right-of-way was fifty yards beyond it. The accident had happened in the middle of a half-mile stretch where both railroads were graded twenty feet above the wagon road.

  I rode Lady to the center of the grade, tied her to a fence post, and climbed the cinder bank to the D. & R. G. tracks. When I got up there, I wanted to turn and slide right back down. If the hollow between the two railroad grades hadn’t had so many ties in it, I would have. There were about fifty Mexicans working on the C. & S. track, but none of the regular crew was there. Instead of the old Mexican section boss, there was a great big man with a red mustache strutting around. I knew him the second I saw him, and a whole string of shivers ran up and down my back. He was a big Irishman, and I’d seen him drunk outside of Monahan’s saloon on Labor Day. And I’d never seen a Durham bull as ugly as he was, or that could bellow as loud. He was in a fight with half a dozen of Charlie Bowles’ cow hands and he was knocking them around like a grizzly bear fighting a pack of dogs.

  As I stood there on the D. & R. G. tracks staring at him, he hit one of the Mexican section hands and knocked him as limp as an empty grain sack, and then he strolled off down the track whistling “Kathleen Mavourneen.”

  I sat down on the edge of the cinder bank, and tried to figure out what I should do. From where I sat, I could see the ties strewn along the bottom of the hollow like a jumble of spilled toothpicks. There were hundreds of them, and the wood was bright and clean where the brace rod had gouged a chunk out of them. I knew I could sell them easy enough, but I didn’t think there was much chance of getting them from the Irish section boss.

  It was his whistling that made me think about Grandmother. She had come over with her father from the North of Ireland when she was a little girl, and her name had been McLaughlin. Everybody knew that one Irishman was always good to another Irishman, so at first it seemed as though it would be best to say, “I’m Mrs. McLaughlin’s grandson, and we’d like to have some of these old ties”; but she wasn’t really Mrs. McLaughlin—that must have been her mother’s name—and it would have sounded crazy to say, “I’m Mrs. McLaughlin’s great-grandson.” I couldn?
??t say, “Mrs. McLaughlin sent me,” either; and I couldn’t say, “I’m one of Mrs. McLaughlin’s boys.” I would just have to say I’d come from Mrs. McLaughlin who used to live in Ireland. I pushed off over the edge and slid down the D. & R. G. cinder bank into the hollow where the ties were.

  The section boss spied me when I was sliding down the bank. I was hardly at the foot of it before he hollered at me, “What in the hell are ye doin’ down there, ye little divil? Ye’ll be after gettin’ your neck broke wid a careenin’ tie. Now git the hell outa here! Git! Git home and tell your mother she wants ye!”

  At first there didn’t seem to be anything to do except to go home, but I wanted those ties. Then I remembered about Grandmother, but I forgot all about the McLaughlin part of it, and called up to him, “I’m an Irishman, too, and I just came out to talk to you.”

  “Divil a bit ye’re an Irishman,” he called back; “ye look to me like a cotton-headed Swaide, but shin yourself up here an’ let’s have a peep of ye. Mind them ties, ye don’t git kilt!”

  I started to shin up the C. & S. cinder bank, but I didn’t say anything more. I knew I didn’t talk very much like an Irishman. Before I was halfway up, he hollered again, “Bi Jaikus Jack, an’ it’s the same little tike what rode in the fair! Like a monkey on horseback ye was!”

  I don’t think any of the Mexicans could understand a word of English, let alone his brogue, but he looked down the track toward them and bellowed, “Irish I knew him the sicond I clapped eyes on the lad. Shin up here, lad, shin up. ’Tis Jerry McEnerney ’twould be shakin’ yer hand.”