Chapter 2 No.2

A Prize Fight and a Race

Cousin Molly and I were spending an afternoon in the Old Orchard. My mother had a houseful of company, a common circumstance in itself. This particular houseful was so little to Cousin Molly Belle's liking that she got away as soon as dinner was over, drawing me, a willing captive, in her train. Furthermore, she had stolen Bud, my baby brother, from the chamber floor where Mam' Chloe had deposited him and a string of spools, while she lent a hand with the dinner dishes to her butler husband.

Bud chuckled and crowed and squealed, as if he were the heart, head, and front of the joke, while we scampered down the middle garden walk, hidden by tall althea hedges, and gained the rail fence at the lower end without being challenged. My accomplice made me climb over first, and lowered her burden carefully into my arms, before she leaned her weight upon the two hands laid on the top rail, and whirled over like an acrobat-or a bird. She could outrun half the boys who had been her slaves and playfellows in childhood, and outjump three-fourths of them.

We were comparatively safe now, the ground dipping abruptly below the garden into a level stretch of "old field" where the broom straw came up to my armpits, the yellowing waves parting before, and closing behind, with the surge and "swish" of a gentle surf. They smelled sweet and they felt soft, and Cousin Molly Belle let Bud down from her shoulder, and making a hammock of her arms, swung him back and forth through the pliant stems until he choked with ecstasy.

Beyond the old field was the Old Orchard. The new orchard, planted nearer the house, was in full bearing, and my father made little account of such fruit-mostly choke-pears and apples from ungrafted limbs-as was enterprising enough to grow and ripen without tending or harvesting. The trunks of the neglected trees were studded with knobs like enormous wens, and the branches had a jaunty earthward cant that made climbing the easiest sort of work, and swinging an irresistible temptation. In the higher boughs were cosey crotches where one could sit, and read, and even sleep, without danger of falling. I and my court of small darkies had spent one whole July Saturday in and under the "big sweeting," when the apples were nominally ripe. I was Elijah, and my attendants were the ravens who plied me with sweetings in all stages of development until I could not have swallowed another to save the combined kingdoms of Judah and Israel. I was ill all night after the surfeit, but I bore the sweetings no grudge for my misplaced confidence in the human stomach.

We three runaways camped down under the brooding branches. The unshorn and uncropped turf was thick and dry as a parlor carpet. Bud crept lawlessly about, picking up twigs and pebbles, and trying his first four teeth upon them. He was a discreet baby, never swallowing what he could not bite into. His real names were William Skipwith Burwell. Somebody had dubbed him "Rosebud," in the first moon of his sublunary existence, and the abbreviation was inevitable. He would probably remain "Bud" until he entered Hampton Sidney. The chances were even that the alliterative temptation of "Bud Burwell" would tack the label upon him for life. Changes were troublesome, and Powhatan County people were opposed to taking trouble. The name of their own county usually lost the second syllable in sliding between their lips.

Cousin Molly Belle threw herself down at full-length on the grass, pillowed her bright head upon her arms, and stared contentedly into the apple boughs.

"This is what I call taking one's comfort!" she breathed.

I sat down by her, my short legs tucked under me, Bedouin-wise. That was one good thing-among many-about being out-of-doors with nobody by but her or the colored children. I could sit cross-legged. If I forgot my manners and did it in the house, my mother, or Mam' Chloe, pulled my legs out straight in front of me, or shook them down, and reminded me that I was going to be a young lady before long. As if that were my fault, or as if it could be helped! My heart glowed with gratification in observing that Cousin Molly Belle had laid one slim ankle over the other. I hitched myself a little nearer to her and lapsed into the confidential tone she encouraged in our tête-à-têtes.

"Don't you just love to cross your-feet?"

My modest hesitation was not lost upon her. She laughed.

"I like to cross my legs-and I do it!"

"Mam' Chloe says people ought to think little ladies haven't any legs,-that their feet are just pinned to the bottom of their pantalettes."

"Mam' Chloe is an-echo!"

"That wasn't what you began to say,-was it?" asked I, diffidently.

She laughed again, tweaking my ear, affectionately, and telling me that I was a "monkey, and too sharp to be safe."

Her eyes were full of laughter and laziness; the color in her cheeks was that of a velvet perpetual rose, shading into peach-blow, then into pure white that never took freckle or tan from the hottest sun.

Have I said that her hair was auburn, and curled like grape tendrils, from the nape of the neck to the forehead? The color was singular. In the shade it was that of a perfectly groomed bay horse. When the sun struck it, it got all alive, as if there were light under it, as well as over it, and was, unmistakably, red. She made more fun of it than anybody else, but at heart she loved her hair, and would not have exchanged it for paley-gold or ebony tresses. Bud had fastened his chubby hands in it to steady himself on his perch, as she ran, and pulled some of it loose from her comb. A thick curl strayed over her arm, bare almost to the shoulder, as was the warm-weather custom of young ladies of that time. She drew it around before her eyes, thinning it into a silky veil, holding it high up and letting it slip, strand by strand, between her and the light.

A notion-indefinable in words-that a wealth of charms was wasted upon one observant little girl and a non-observant baby, led me to inquire:-

"Would you, sure enough, rather be out here than in the house, talking to them all?"

"I am tired of 'them all,' Molly. They tire me to death."

"Some grown people are not tiresome," I essayed. "There's Mr. Frank Morton, now. I like him!"

"Oh, you do-do you? Why?" still shredding the veil of curls between her and the sun.

"Well, one thing is, he talks straight. He doesn't talk 'round about, and sideways, and crossways, to children. Nor make fun of my questions. He just answers right along and plain."

"I don't think I quite know what you mean, Namesake."

"Why, you see it's this way,-the other day I asked him if he didn't think you were a heap prettier than any other lady he ever saw, and he never so much as cracked a smile. He just put his arm 'round me-he never did that but twice before-and he said up-and-down, as serious as anything-'Yes, I do, Molly!' And he does make the beautifullest chinquapin whistles! They go on whistling after they are dry. You see, the trouble with the whistles other people make for me, is that they shrivel all up by next day, and there isn't a bit of whistle left in them."

"That's the way with most of my whistles, too, Namesake. And then I throw them away and want new ones. Heigh-ho! What's the use of a whistle when all the whistle has gone out of it? I must ask Mr. Frank Morton how he makes his."

I gave a jump and a little squeak.

"Oh, Cousin Molly Belle! there's a great, big race-horse on you!"

He had tumbled out of the apple boughs upon the folds of her skirt and before I could capture him, a second fell after him. I was upon my feet in a twinkling, seized first one, then the other, by their attenuated middles, and held them up, all kicking and sprawling, between a thumb and finger of each hand. I knew the tricks and the manners of what I learned, many years later, that naturalists describe as the mantis religiosa, or praying-mantis, because in off-hours,-i.e. when they are not foraging or fighting-they will sit upon their hind quarters and "fold the stout anterior legs in a manner suggesting hands folded in prayer."

I had caught dozens of them and fed them for days in a box with coarse lace tied over the top to prevent escape, and studied their habits, and humored their propensities by putting several together in the prison that forthwith became an arena, in which duello and general scrimmage relieved one another in enchanting succession.

I explained now, to my diverted companion, that I held them by their backs so that they could not bite me, and pointed out the wicked heads turning almost quite around in their savage efforts to avenge their capture. I was sure, I said excitedly, that these two were fighting up in the tree, and that was the way they happened to drop so close together. Had she never seen devil's race-horses fight? Mother didn't like that name for them, so I 'most always said just "race-horses" plain, so. Only, when they were very cross, the other word would slip out.

"If I were to let them go this minute, they'd begin to fight, 'stead of running away," I concluded. "S'pose we try them."

Entering into my humor, she improvised a cockpit by spreading her pocket-handkerchief upon the ground, and I liberated the gladiators.

They more than justified my account of their ferocity by grappling on the instant, each rising to his full height and hurling himself at his opponent's throat.

"You see they are acquainted with one another," I commented, as umpire and manager. "They just begin where they left off up in the tree."

It was an exciting display. Cousin Molly Belle raised herself upon her elbow; I doubled tightly under me what I now let myself think of as my legs, and spread both hands flat on the grass, to lean over the arena. In the hush that followed the onslaught the babbling song Bud crooned to himself as he crawled over the sun-and-shade dappled turf harmonized with the sleepy shaking of the leaves about us. Such another happy-hearted baby was never seen. And so wise, as I have said, for a yearling! never getting into mischief, and afraid of nothing.

I peeped through a kinetoscope last winter at a prize fight. I have never beheld anything that so closely and humiliatingly resembled the battle on the cambric square under the big sweeting. The wary advance after the recoil from the first encounter; the circling about at close quarters, each watching for his antagonist's weak point, the sudden clutch, embrace, and wrestle, which I, with umpiric instinct, interrupted, once and again, to prolong the combat,-none of these were wanting from either exhibition.

At length, I left the combatants to follow the bent of native savagery, and then came such warm and inartistic work as patrons of the human ring would decry as barbarous and out-of-date. They bit venomously, below the belt, they grabbed at and hung on to any part of the body that came handy; they rolled over and over, intertwined so closely as to appear like one convulsed, centipedal monster. Finally, one half of the creature gave a violent kick and was still. As the victor shook himself free of the carcass we saw the head he had bitten from the other's neck roll from under the survivor. Withdrawing an inch or two from the remains, he sat up on his hind quarters, and "folded his stout anterior legs" sanctimoniously in a battle-prayer. His devotions ended, he proceeded to lick his wound and readjust himself generally.

"I'm sorry I didn't separate them," said Cousin Molly Belle, shaking her handkerchief with coy finger-tips. "I don't think I care to see such another fight. It gives me the creeps."

"I think it is very interesting," replied I. "'Tisn't as if they had souls, you see. They just die and don't go anywhere."

A disagreeable noise joined Bud's cooing and babbling, and made us turn quickly. Right before us, and within six feet of the helpless baby, who had sat up to regard the phenomenon with innocent wonder, was an enormous sow with a brood of hungry young ones at her heels. Her vicious grunt, her gloating eyes, her dripping jaws, and projecting tusks, bespoke her dangerous. Only yesterday I had seen her, prowling in the barn-yard, seize and devour, one after another, three downy ducklings before the stable-boys could beat her off. In the terror of this moment, the scene flashed back to me, and I seemed to hear again the crunching of those slavering jaws.

Cousin Molly Belle swooped down upon Bud, and had him upon her shoulder before I could join my piping cry to her shout that rang out like a silver trumpet. The huge beast halted, made as though she would turn, then gave an angry, squealing grunt, and lunged toward us. Not a loose stick or stone was within reach. If there had been, there was not time to pick it up.

"Run for the fence! Run!" called the brave girl to me, and met the voracious brute with a kick, so well aimed that the high heel of her shoe struck full upon the eye next to her. In the respite gained by the sow's stagger and recoil, our defender overtook me, caught my hand, and fled along the path traced in the trampled broom-straw, through which we had waded merrily awhile ago. We had not taken a dozen steps when we heard the enemy roaring behind us.

"Oh!" gasped I, running with all my might meanwhile. "She will eat up Bud! Like she-ate-up-the-little-ducks!"

"She shall eat me first!"

I knew she meant it, and that it was true. The fence was not more than fifty yards away. It looked a mile off, and the wild grass was as tough and treacherous as it had been pliant and sweet when we had danced through it. I was a swift runner and my limbs obeyed me well. I was conscious, moreover, of the strong upbearing of my companion's hand that lent wings to my feet. If I were to stumble, she would not let me fall. This persuasion kept mind and heart in me.

Yet the sow would have caught up with us had not a pig set up a piteous squeal, as it lost its way or was entangled by the grass. The mother went back to reassure it with a series of staccato gruntings, very unlike those with which she renewed the chase.

We were at the fence. I scrambled over, spent and shaking, hardly able to receive the precious load that was lowered to me. As Cousin Molly Belle dropped after us, our pursuer's snout was poked between the lower rails in a last and futile attempt to get at the baby's fat legs.

"Then I got mad all through!" Cousin Molly Belle told my mother, in recounting the adventure.

Her white face flamed scarlet in a second. A pile of disused pea sticks lay in the fence corner. She seized one, and jumped over the fence again. Wielding her weapon as if it were a flail, she brought it down upon the ugly head and raw-boned body; and as the sow turned tail to run, belabored her through the orchard to the gap by which she had entered.

The conqueror returned to me, flushed, but unsmiling. I had Bud tight in my arms, and was laughing and crying together.

"It was funny to see you lam her and to see her run," I sobbed between giggles that hurt me more than the sobs.

She sat down on the grass, and clasped the baby to her heart. He cooed joyously, and held up a sweet open mouth for a kiss. He got, not one, but twenty kisses upon his wet lips, his pink face, his curly head, and the bonny eyes that were bluer than the sky. Then she bent to give me one-so long and tender that it checked sob and giggle.

"We will never make devil's race-horses fight again, Namesake. They have a right to their lives. And a life is a very precious thing!"

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