Well, I must tell you about what we did and let you in on what Im talking about. Four of us boys from Beckersville, all whites and sons of men who live in Beckersville regular, made up our minds we were going to the races, not just to Lexington or Louisville, I dont mean, but to the big eastern track we were always hearing our Beckersville men talk about, to Saratoga. We were all pretty young then. I was just turned fifteen and I was the oldest of the four. It was my scheme.
I admit that and I talked the others into trying it. There was Hanley Turner and Henry Rieback and Tom Tumberton and myself. I had thirty-seven dollars I had earned during the winter working nights and Saturdays in Enoch Myers grocery. Henry Rieback had eleven dollars and the others, Hanley and Tom had only a dollar or two each. We fixed it all up and laid low until the Kentucky spring meetings were over and some of our men, the sportiest ones, the ones we envied the most, had cut out-then we cut out too.
I wont tell you the trouble we had beating our way on freights and all. We went through Cleveland and Buffalo and other cities and saw Niagara Falls. We bought things there, souvenirs and spoons and cards and shells with pictures of the falls on them for our sisters and mothers, but thought we had better not send any of the things home. We didnt want to put the folks on our trail and maybe be nabbed.
We got into Saratoga as I said at night and went to the track. Bildad fed us up. He showed us a place to sleep in hay over a shed and promised to keep still. Niggers are all right about things like that. They wont squeal on you. Often a white man you might meet, when you had run away from home like that, might appear to be all right and give you a quarter or a half dollar or something, and then go right and give you away. White men will do that, but not a nigger. You can trust them. They are squarer with kids. I dont know why.
At the Saratoga meeting that year there were a lot of men from home. Dave Williams and Arthur Mulford and Jerry Myers and others. Then there was a lot from Louisville and Lexington Henry Rieback knew but I didnt. They were professional gamblers and Henry Riebacks father is one too. He is what is called a sheet writer and goes away most of the year to tracks. In the winter when he is home in Beckersville he dont stay there much but goes away to cities and deals faro. He is a nice man and generous, is always sending Henry presents, a bicycle and a gold watch and a boy scout suit of clothes and things like that.
My own father is a lawyer. Hes all right, but dont make much money and cant buy me things and anyway Im getting so old now I dont expect it. He never said nothing to me against Henry, but Hanley Turner and Tom Tumbertons fathers did. They said to their boys that money so come by is no good and they didnt want their boys brought up to hear gamblers talk and be thinking about such things and maybe embrace them.
Thats all right and I guess the men know what they are talking about, but I dont see what its got to do with Henry or with horses either. Thats what Im writing this story about. Im puzzled. Im getting to be a man and want to think straight and be O.K., and theres something I saw at the race meeting at the eastern track I cant figure out.
I cant help it, Im crazy about thoroughbred horses. Ive always been that way. When I was ten years old and saw I was growing to be big and couldnt be a rider I was so sorry I nearly died. Harry Hellinfinger in Beckersville, whose father is Postmaster, is grown up and too lazy to work, but likes to stand around in the street and get up jokes on boys like sending them to a hardware store for a gimlet to bore square holes and other jokes like that. He played one on me. He told me that if I would eat a half a cigar I would be stunted and not grow any more and maybe could be a rider. I did it. When father wasnt looking I took a cigar out of his pocket and gagged it down some way. It made me awful sick and the doctor had to be sent for, and then it did no good. I kept right on growing. It was a joke. When I told what I had done and why most fathers would have whipped me but mine didnt.
Well, I didnt get stunted and didnt die. It serves Harry Hellinfinger right. Then I made up my mind I would like to be a stable boy, but had to give that up too. Mostly niggers do that work and I knew father wouldnt let me go into it. No use to ask him.
If youve never been crazy about thoroughbreds its because youve never been around where they are much and dont know any better. Theyre beautiful. There isnt anything so lovely and clean and full of spunk and honest and everything as some race horses. On the big horse farms that are all around our town Beckersville there are tracks and the horses run in the early morning. More than a thousand times Ive got out of bed before daylight and walked two or three miles to the tracks. Mother wouldnt of let me go but father always says, Let him alone. So I got some bread out of the bread box and some butter and jam, gobbled it and lit out.
At the tracks you sit on the fence with men, whites and niggers, and they chew tobacco and talk, and then the colts are brought out. Its early and the grass is covered with shiny dew and in another field a man is plowing and they are frying things in a shed where the track niggers sleep, and you know how a nigger can giggle and laugh and say things that make you laugh. A white man cant do it and some niggers cant but a track nigger can every time.
And so the colts are brought out and some are just galloped by stable boys, but almost every morning on a big track owned by a rich man who lives maybe in New York, there are always, nearly every morning, a few colts and some of the old race horses and geldings and mares that are cut loose.
It brings a lump up into my throat when a horse runs. I dont mean all horses but some. I can pick them nearly every time. Its in my blood like in the blood of race track niggers and trainers. Even when they just go slop-jogging along with a little nigger on their backs I can tell a winner. If my throat hurts and its hard for me to swallow, thats him. Hell run like Sam Hill when you let him out. If he dont win every time itll be a wonder and because theyve got him in a pocket behind another or he was pulled or got off bad at the post or something. If I wanted to be a gambler like Henry Riebacks father I could get rich. I know I could and Henry says so too. All I would have to do is to wait til that hurt comes when I see a horse and then bet every cent. Thats what I would do if I wanted to be a gambler, but I dont.
When youre at the tracks in the morning-not the race tracks but the training tracks around Beckersville-you dont see a horse, the kind Ive been talking about, very often, but its nice anyway. Any thoroughbred, that is sired right and out of a good mare and trained by a man that knows how, can run. If he couldnt what would he be there for and not pulling a plow?
Well, out of the stables they come and the boys are on their backs and its lovely to be there. You hunch down on top of the fence and itch inside you. Over in the sheds the niggers giggle and sing. Bacon is being fried and coffee made. Everything smells lovely. Nothing smells better than coffee and manure and horses and niggers and bacon frying and pipes being smoked out of doors on a morning like that. It just gets you, thats what it does.
But about Saratoga. We was there six days and not a soul from home seen us and everything came off just as we wanted it to, fine weather and horses and races and all. We beat our way home and Bildad gave us a basket with fried chicken and bread and other eatables in, and I had eighteen dollars when we got back to Beckersville. Mother jawed and cried but Pop didnt say much. I told everything we done except one thing. I did and saw that alone. Thats what Im writing about. It got me upset. I think about it at night. Here it is.