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I Want to Know WhyWe got up at four in the morning, that first day in the east. On theevening before we had climbed off a freight train at the edge of town,and with the true instinct of Kentucky boys had found our way acrosstown and to the race track and the stables at once. Then we knew wewere all right. Hanley Turner right away found a nigger we knew. It wasBildad Johnson who in the winter works at Ed Becker's livery barn inour home town, Beckersville. Bildad is a good cook as almost all ourniggers are and of course he, like everyone in our part of Kentucky whois anyone at all, likes the horses. In the spring Bildad begins toscratch around. A nigger from our country can flatter and wheedleanyone into letting him do most anything he wants. Bildad wheedles thestable men and the trainers from the horse farms in our country aroundLexington. The trainers come into town in the evening to stand aroundand talk and maybe get into a poker game. Bildad gets in with them. Heis always doing little favors and telling about things to eat, chickenbrowned in a pan, and how is the best way to cook sweet potatoes andcorn bread. It makes your mouth water to hear him.
When the racing season comes on and the horses go to the races andthere is all the talk on the streets in the evenings about the newcolts, and everyone says when they are going over to Lexington or tothe spring meeting at Churchhill Downs or to Latonia, and the horsementhat have been down to New Orleans or maybe at the winter meeting atHavana in Cuba come home to spend a week before they start out again,at such a time when everything talked about in Beckersville is justhorses and nothing else and the outfits start out and horse racing isin every breath of air you breathe, Bildad shows up with a job as cookfor some outfit. Often when I think about it, his always going allseason to the races and working in the livery barn in the winter wherehorses are and where men like to come and talk about horses, I wish Iwas a nigger. It's a foolish thing to say, but that's the way I amabout being around horses, just crazy. I can't help it.
Well, I must tell you about what we did and let you in on what I'mtalking about. Four of us boys from Beckersville, all whites and sonsof men who live in Beckersville regular, made up our minds we weregoing to the races, not just to Lexington or Louisville, I don't mean,but to the big eastern track we were always hearing our Beckersvillemen talk about, to Saratoga. We were all pretty young then. I was justturned 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 HanleyTurner and Henry Rieback and Tom Tumberton and myself. I had thirty-seven dollars I had earned during the winter working nights andSaturdays in Enoch Myer's grocery. Henry Rieback had eleven dollars andthe others, Hanley and Tom had only a dollar or two each. We fixed itall up and laid low until the Kentucky spring meetings were over andsome of our men, the sportiest ones, the ones we envied the most, hadcut out--then we cut out too.
I won't tell you the trouble we had beating our way on freights andall. We went through Cleveland and Buffalo and other cities and sawNiagara Falls. We bought things there, souvenirs and spoons and cardsand shells with pictures of the falls on them for our sisters andmothers, but thought we had better not send any of the things home. Wedidn't 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. Bildadfed us up. He showed us a place to sleep in hay over a shed andpromised to keep still. Niggers are all right about things like that.They won't squeal on you. Often a white man you might meet, when youhad run away from home like that, might appear to be all right and giveyou a quarter or a half dollar or something, and then go right and giveyou away. White men will do that, but not a nigger. You can trust them.They are squarer with kids. I don't 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 therewas a lot from Louisville and Lexington Henry Rieback knew but Ididn't. They were professional gamblers and Henry Rieback's father isone too. He is what is called a sheet writer and goes away most of theyear to tracks. In the winter when he is home in Beckersville he don'tstay there much but goes away to cities and deals faro. He is a niceman and generous, is always sending Henry presents, a bicycle and agold watch and a boy scout suit of clothes and things like that.
My own father is a lawyer. He's all right, but don't make much moneyand can't buy me things and anyway I'm getting so old now I don'texpect it. He never said nothing to me against Henry, but Hanley Turnerand Tom Tumberton's fathers did. They said to their boys that money socome by is no good and they didn't want their boys brought up to heargamblers' talk and be thinking about such things and maybe embracethem.
That's all right and I guess the men know what they are talking about,but I don't see what it's got to do with Henry or with horses either.That's what I'm writing this story about. I'm puzzled. I'm getting tobe a man and want to think straight and be O. K., and there's somethingI saw at the race meeting at the eastern track I can't figure out.
I can't help it, I'm crazy about thoroughbred horses. I've always beenthat way. When I was ten years old and saw I was growing to be big andcouldn't be a rider I was so sorry I nearly died. Harry Hellinfinger inBeckersville, whose father is Postmaster, is grown up and too lazy towork, but likes to stand around in the street and get up jokes on boyslike sending them to a hardware store for a gimlet to bore square holesand other jokes like that. He played one on me. He told me that if Iwould eat a half a cigar I would be stunted and not grow any more andmaybe could be a rider. I did it. When father wasn't looking I took acigar out of his pocket and gagged it down some way. It made me awfulsick and the doctor had to be sent for, and then it did no good. I keptright on growing. It was a joke. When I told what I had done and whymost fathers would have whipped me but mine didn't.
Well, I didn't get stunted and didn't die. It serves Harry Hellinfingerright. Then I made up my mind I would like to be a stable boy, but hadto give that up too. Mostly niggers do that work and I knew fatherwouldn't let me go into it. No use to ask him.
If you've never been crazy about thoroughbreds it's because you'venever been around where they are much and don't know any better.They're beautiful. There isn't anything so lovely and clean and full ofspunk and honest and everything as some race horses. On the big horsefarms that are all around our town Beckersville there are tracks andthe horses run in the early morning. More than a thousand times I'vegot out of bed before daylight and walked two or three miles to thetracks. Mother wouldn't of let me go but father always says, &Let himalone.& So I got some bread out of the bread box and some butter andjam, gobbled it and lit out.
At the tracks you sit on the fence with men, whites and niggers, andthey chew tobacco and talk, and then the colts are brought out. It'searly and the grass is covered with shiny dew and in another field aman is plowing and they are frying things in a shed where the trackniggers sleep, and you know how a nigger can giggle and laugh and saythings that make you laugh. A white man can't do it and some niggerscan't but a track nigger can every time.
And so the colts are brought out and some are just galloped by stableboys, but almost every morning on a big track owned by a rich man wholives maybe in New York, there are always, nearly every morning, a fewcolts and some of the old race horses and geldings and mares that arecut loose.
It brings a lump up into my throat when a horse runs. I don't mean allhorses but some. I can pick them nearly every time. It's in my bloodlike in the blood of race track niggers and trainers. Even when theyjust go slop-jogging along with a little nigger on their backs I cantell a winner. If my throat hurts and it's hard for me to swallow,that's him. He'll run like Sam Hill when you let him out. If he don'twin every time it'll be a wonder and because they've got him in apocket behind another or he was pulled or got off bad at the post orsomething. If I wanted to be a gambler like Henry Rieback's father Icould get rich. I know I could and Henry says so too. All I would haveto do is to wait 'til that hurt comes when I see a horse and then betevery cent. That's what I would do if I wanted to be a gambler, but Idon't.
When you're at the tracks in the morning--not the race tracks but thetraining tracks around Beckersville--you don't see a horse, the kindI've been talking about, very often, but it's nice anyway. Anythoroughbred, that is sired right and out of a good mare and trained bya man that knows how, can run. If he couldn't what would he be therefor and not pulling a plow?
Well, out of the stables they come and the boys are on their backs andit's lovely to be there. You hunch down on top of the fence and itchinside you. Over in the sheds the niggers giggle and sing. Bacon isbeing fried and coffee made. Everything smells lovely. Nothing smellsbetter than coffee and manure and horses and niggers and bacon fryingand pipes being smoked out of doors on a morning like that. It justgets you, that's what it does.
But about Saratoga. We was there six days and not a soul from home seenus and everything came off just as we wanted it to, fine weather andhorses and races and all. We beat our way home and Bildad gave us abasket with fried chicken and bread and other eatables in, and I hadeighteen dollars when we got back to Beckersville. Mother jawed andcried but Pop didn't say much. I told everything we done except onething. I did and saw that alone. That's what I'm writing about. It gotme upset. I think about it at night. Here it is.
At Saratoga we laid up nights in the hay in the shed Bildad had showedus and ate with the niggers early and at night when the race people hadall gone away. The men from home stayed mostly in the grandstand andbetting field, and didn't come out around the places where the horsesare kept except to the paddocks just before a race when the horses aresaddled. At Saratoga they don't have paddocks under an open shed as atLexington and Churchill Downs and other tracks down in our country, butsaddle the horses right out in an open place under trees on a lawn assmooth and nice as Banker Bohon's front yard here in Beckersville. It'slovely. The horses are sweaty and nervous and shine and the men comeout and smoke cigars and look at them and the trainers are there andthe owners, and your heart thumps so you can hardly breathe.
Then the bugle blows for post and the boys that ride come running outwith their silk clothes on and you run to get a place by the fence withthe niggers.
I always am wanting to be a trainer or owner, and at the risk of beingseen and caught and sent home I went to the paddocks before every race.The other boys didn't but I did.
We got to Saratoga on a Friday and on Wednesday the next week the bigMullford Handicap was to be run. Middlestride was in it and Sunstreak.The weather was fine and the track fast. I couldn't sleep the nightbefore.
What had happened was that both these horses are the kind it makes mythroat hurt to see. Middlestride is long and looks awkward and is agelding. He belongs to Joe Thompson, a little owner from home who onlyhas a half dozen horses. The Mullford Handicap is for a mile andMiddlestride can't untrack fast. He goes away slow and is always wayback at the half, then he begins to run and if the race is a mile and aquarter he'll just eat up everything and get there.
Sunstreak is different. He is a stallion and nervous and belongs on thebiggest farm we've got in our country, the Van Riddle place thatbelongs to Mr. Van Riddle of New York. Sunstreak is like a girl youthink about sometimes but never see. He is hard all over and lovelytoo. When you look at his head you want to kiss him. He is trained byJerry Tillford who knows me and has been good to me lots of times, letsme walk into a horse's stall to look at him close and other things.There isn't anything as sweet as that horse. He stands at the postquiet and not letting on, but he is just burning up inside. Then whenthe barrier goes up he is off like his name, Sunstreak. It makes youache to see him. It hurts you. He just lays down and runs like a birddog. There can't anything I ever see run like him except Middlestridewhen he gets untracked and stretches himself.
Gee! I ached to see that race and those two horses run, ached anddreaded it too. I didn't want to see either of our horses beaten. Wehad never sent a pair like that to the races before. Old men inBeckersville said so and the niggers said so. It was a fact.
Before the race I went over to the paddocks to see. I looked a lastlook at Middlestride, who isn't such a much standing in a paddock thatway, then I went to see Sunstreak.
It was his day. I knew when I see him. I forgot all about being seenmyself and walked right up. All the men from Beckersville were thereand no one noticed me except Jerry Tillford. He saw me and somethinghappened. I'll tell you about that.
I was standing looking at that horse and aching. In some way, I can'ttell how, I knew just how Sunstreak felt inside. He was quiet andletting the niggers rub his legs and Mr. Van Riddle himself put thesaddle on, but he was just a raging torrent inside. He was like thewater in the river at Niagara Falls just before its goes plunk down.That horse wasn't thinking about running. He don't have to think aboutthat. He was just thinking about holding himself back 'til the time forthe running came. I knew that. I could just in a way see right insidehim. He was going to do some awful running and I knew it. He wasn'tbragging or letting on much or prancing or making a fuss, but justwaiting. I knew it and Jerry Tillford his trainer knew. I looked up andthen that man and I looked into each other's eyes. Something happenedto me. I guess I loved the man as much as I did the horse because heknew what I knew. Seemed to me there wasn't anything in the world butthat man and the horse and me. I cried and Jerry Tillford had a shinein his eyes. Then I came away to the fence to wait for the race. Thehorse was better than me, more steadier, and now I know better thanJerry. He was the quietest and he had to do the running.
Sunstreak ran first of course and he busted the world's record for amile. I've seen that if I never see anything more. Everything came outjust as I expected. Middlestride got left at the post and was way backand closed up to be second, just as I knew he would. He'll get aworld's record too some day. They can't skin the Beckersville countryon horses.
I watched the race calm because I knew what would happen. I was sure.Hanley Turner and Henry Rieback and Tom Tumberton were all more excitedthan me.
A funny thing had happened to me. I was thinking about Jerry Tillfordthe trainer and how happy he was all through the race. I liked him thatafternoon even more than I ever liked my own father. I almost forgotthe horses thinking that way about him. It was because of what I hadseen in his eyes as he stood in the paddocks beside Sunstreak beforethe race started. I knew he had been watching and working withSunstreak since the horse was a baby colt, had taught him to run and bepatient and when to let himself out and not to quit, never. I knew thatfor him it was like a mother seeing her child do something brave orwonderful. It was the first time I ever felt for a man like that.
After the race that night I cut out from Tom and Hanley and Henry. Iwanted to be by myself and I wanted to be near Jerry Tillford if Icould work it. Here is what happened.
The track in Saratoga is near the edge of town. It is all polished upand trees around, the evergreen kind, and grass and everything paintedand nice. If you go past the track you get to a hard road made ofasphalt for automobiles, and if you go along this for a few miles thereis a road turns off to a little rummy-looking farm house set in a yard.
That night after the race I went along that road because I had seenJerry and some other men go that way in an automobile. I didn't expectto find them. I walked for a ways and then sat down by a fence tothink. It was the direction they went in. I wanted to be as near Jerryas I could. I felt close to him. Pretty soon I went up the side road--Idon't know why--and came to the rummy farm house. I was just lonesometo see Jerry, like wanting to see your father at night when you are ayoung kid. Just then an automobile came along and turned in. Jerry wasin it and Henry Rieback's father, and Arthur Bedford from home, andDave Williams and two other men I didn't know. They got out of the carand went into the house, all but Henry Rieback's father who quarreledwith them and said he wouldn't go. It was only about nine o'clock, butthey were all drunk and the rummy looking farm house was a place forbad women to stay in. That's what it was. I crept up along a fence andlooked through a window and saw.
It's what give me the fantods. I can't make it out. The women in thehouse were all ugly mean-looking women, not nice to look at or be near.They were homely too, except one who was tall and looked a little likethe gelding Middlestride, but not clean like him, but with a hard uglymouth. She had red hair. I saw everything plain. I got up by an oldrose bush by an open window and looked. The women had on loose dressesand sat around in chairs. The men came in and some sat on the women'slaps. The place smelled rotten and there was rotten talk, the kind akid hears around a livery stable in a town like Beckersville in thewinter but don't ever expect to hear talked when there are womenaround. It was rotten. A nigger wouldn't go into such a place.
I looked at Jerry Tillford. I've told you how I had been feeling abouthim on account of his knowing what was going on inside of Sunstreak inthe minute before he went to the post for the race in which he made aworld's record.
Jerry bragged in that bad woman house as I know Sunstreak wouldn'tnever have bragged. He said that he made that horse, that it was himthat won the race and made the record. He lied and bragged like a fool.I never heard such silly talk.
And then, what do you suppose he did! He looked at the woman in there,the one that was lean and hard-mouthed and looked a little like thegelding Middlestride, but not clean like him, and his eyes began toshine just as they did when he looked at me and at Sunstreak in thepaddocks at the track in the afternoon. I stood there by the window--gee!--but I wished I hadn't gone away from the tracks, but had stayedwith the boys and the niggers and the horses. The tall rotten lookingwoman was between us just as Sunstreak was in the paddocks in theafternoon.
Then, all of a sudden, I began to hate that man. I wanted to scream andrush in the room and kill him. I never had such a feeling before. I wasso mad clean through that I cried and my fists were doubled up so myfinger nails cut my hands.
And Jerry's eyes kept shining and he waved back and forth, and then hewent and kissed that woman and I crept away and went back to the tracksand to bed and didn't sleep hardly any, and then next day I got theother kids to start home with me and never told them anything I seen.
I been thinking about it ever since. I can't make it out. Spring hascome again and I'm nearly sixteen and go to the tracks mornings same asalways, and I see Sunstreak and Middlestride and a new colt namedStrident I'll bet will lay them all out, but no one thinks so but meand two or three niggers.
But things are different. At the tracks the air don't taste as good orsmell as good. It's because a man like Jerry Tillford, who knows whathe does, could see a horse like Sunstreak run, and kiss a woman likethat the same day. I can't make it out. Darn him, what did he want todo like that for? I keep thinking about it and it spoils looking athorses and smelling things and hearing niggers laugh and everything.Sometimes I'm so mad about it I want to fight someone. It gives me thefantods. What did he do it for? I want to know why.
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