NEWS OF THE coming race traveled like forked lightning. The Gazette in Brookfield and the Journal in Randolph planned to run a full account of the event. Already they were setting type on the now-famous letter, and saving space for the story.
Meanwhile, everyone wanted to help the little Morgan get ready for the big day. It was Joel who asked the important question. “How do they start the horses in big races?” he inquired of Nathan Nye. “Do they just drop a hat, the way you do?”
Mister Nye hemmed and hawed. He was unwilling to admit he had never been to a match where Thoroughbreds ran. Secretly he went around to Mister Fisk’s house and there learned that sometimes a race was started by blast of trumpet or tap of drum, and sometimes a gong rang; but most often a pistol was raised, aimed, and fired—and the horses took off.
Accordingly, Mister Nye acquired a trumpet, a drum, a gong, and a pistol. Then in practice matches he let Joel act as jockey, and he used a different signal each time so that Little Bub would be familiar with them all.
Another thing Nathan Nye did. Instead of the usual quarter-mile race, he made Little Bub turn and run both ways of the track in order to build up to half-mile stamina.
A week before the big race, one of the farmers suggested clipping the Morgan’s coat and trimming his fetlocks and chin whiskers, and even the hairs in his ears, to make him look stylish. But Master Morgan shook his head. “Often the nights be cold,” he said. “Were the creature to take chills and ague, his wind would suffer.”
And so Little Bub kept his shaggy coat, and he continued to work hard every day until the very hour when Evans rode him to Brookfield.
• • •
That day of the race, October 15, 1796, dawned fine and clear. Within a dozen miles of Brookfield everyone—goldsmiths, blacksmiths, barber-surgeons, wigmakers, clock-makers, hatters—made all sorts of excuses to close shop. Master Morgan dismissed school at noon. And Miller Chase, in a burst of generosity, let Joel take the afternoon off.
The boy had never been so excited. The sky was deep and blue, and the clouds had wings to them. He himself felt like some winged creature, having just escaped a dark old cocoon. He raced to the Jenkses’ house, carrying a shabby satchel with holes in the corners where mice had been at work. While Mister Jenks was yoking Nip and Tuck, Joel did a little recon-noitering. Then, with laughter inside him, he climbed into the oxcart and settled himself between Mister Jenks and the schoolmaster.
“Seems good to be skylarking again, eh, Joel?” Master Morgan said as the wagon wheels whined and the oxen slow-footed ahead. “But why in the world did you bring a satchel? We’ll be back before midnight, you know.”
Joel grinned sheepishly. He turned around, pushing the bag toward the rear of the cart. “It’s a surprise,” he said, a mischief look in his eye.
The trip to Brookfield was uneventful. Up over one ridge and down again, with hills tumbling away to distance, and streams winding close.
“Barrin’ a broken axle,” Mister Jenks remarked, “we ought to be there a spell afore the others.”
But when they entered the public room of the Green Dragon Inn, already there was a great bustle and stir. Tobacco smoke lay heavy on the air. It made Joel’s eyes smart, and it set the schoolmaster to coughing.
Opposite the door and underneath the clock a little ticket counter had been set up. Men with silver dollars jingling in their hands were clustered about it, making their wagers. Joel sidled up to the line, and as he listened, the fun inside him was shot through by little arrows of fear. Nearly everyone who came in after looking at Silvertail and Sweepstakes bet against Little Bub.
Flushing in anger, Joel ran out to the stables behind the inn. Past sheds and troughs and wagons and horses he ran, his voice full of torment, crying: “They can’t hold a candle to Bub. They can’t! They can’t!”
There were stalls for some forty horses in the stable, but only two were hidden by throngs of people. Joel joined the nearest line and made his way forward, borne by the surge of the crowd, until he stood eye to eye with a gray mare. Her forelock and mane were braided with gold and purple ribbons, and over her back she wore a gold and purple body cloth. What little he could see of her neck and legs was a sheen that told of endless currying.
Grudgingly he thought, “You’re something to look at.” But aloud he said, “Beauty is as beauty does.”
“Hey, men!” a gruff voice mocked. “Listen here to the little preacher-boy. ‘Beauty is as beauty does’!”
A roar of laughter went up on all sides. And all at once the day that had seemed so full of fun and frolic clouded over with doubt. Joel turned his back on the mare. He did not want to see her delicate head again. Nor did he care to look at the other Thoroughbred at all. He wanted only to get away from the crowd, to get back to the schoolmaster. But now the tide of men was turning, sweeping and jostling him along. He was caught in the jam like a piece of drift. There was no choice but to inch ahead with the pulsing current of men.
At last the crowd began to fan out against a stone fence enclosing a pasture. And there to Joel’s sudden joy he spied Little Bub calmly scratching his shoulder against a shellbark hickory tree. How hard and tough and courageous he looked! And how frisky and dear! In a flash Joel had leaped the fence.
Now he was hovering over the dusty creature, trying to comb the tangled forelock and mane with his fingers. He was like some fond parent wanting his young one to make as good a showing as any.
Robert Evans turned around from the nearby watering trough where he was scooping water to cool his brow. His face dripping, he strode over to Joel and picked him up by the seat of his pants. “You . . . you tomnoddy!” he bellowed, dropping the boy on the other side of the fence. “Leave the horse be. Scratchin’ and grazin’ will do him a heap more good than all your billin’ and cooin’.”
Red with shame, Joel picked himself up and ran to the inn. He was just in time to hear Mister Jenks call out: “Hey, Morgan! Yon cuckoo crows the hour of five. Where’s that-there New York Foppington and his fancy partner?”
All necks craned to look at the clock on the wall. Each time the little bird popped out of its door and uttered its merry call, the crowd grew quieter and quieter until there was nothing to be heard but an echo dying.
Then, suddenly, every nose in the room twitched. An oversweet smell of pomade and lavender water penetrated the tobacco smoke. Again, with a single motion, all heads turned toward the stairway from which the scent came. There, mincing down the steps as lightly as ballet dancers, came the be-wigged gentlemen—Jonathan Foppington and his partner, the Honorable James Montague, Esquire. They wore flowered vests, and coats with long skirts that swayed with every movement. And their pumps were adorned with great silver buckles such as few of the Vermonters had ever seen.
When they reached the landing, both men stopped. Like actors in a play, each took a jeweled snuffbox from his waistcoat. Then, giving the lid a light tap, each opened his box, dipped into the snuff with a thumb and a forefinger, and carried a dainty pinch to his nostrils. “Ah-aah,” they gasped, trying to encourage a sneeze. But no sound came. Only a sigh like that made by bellows.
For a stunned moment the onlookers were as still as figures in a painting. Then clay pipes began puffing violently to rout the perfume smell, and everyone began murmuring at once.
Joel caught only scraps of talk. But the remark he liked the best was Seth Toothaker’s. “High-duck dandies I calls ’em—them and their horses, too!”
Nor did the New Yorkers try to hide their feelings. They looked down their noses at the Vermonters in rough homespun. And later, when they went out to the pasture and saw Evans saddling up, they laughed until they had to mop their tears with lace-edged handkerchiefs.
“Hmph!” they snorted. “Is this the runty little thing we’ve been hearing about? ’Tis an insult to match our blooded horses against him.” Then in a stage whisper meant for everyone’s ears, Jonathan Foppington said, “Tis a well-known fact that horses with short necks can’t run.”
This was too much for Abel Hooper. He shook a long, horny finger at the New Yorkers and bawled out, “It may s’prise you gentlemen to know that this-here horse ain’t a-goin’ to run with his neck! I and my mare, Nanny Luddy, can testify to that!”
The crowd burst into a fit of laughter. It was Vermont against New York now, and the men were all for Bub in spite of their wagers.
