Blister Jones Part 1

Blister Jones.

by John Taintor Foote.

I dedicate this, my first book, with awe and the deepest affection, to Mulvaney--Mowgil--Kim, and all the wonderful rest of them.

J. T. F.

A certain magazine, that shall be nameless, I read every month. Not because its pale contents, largely furnished by worthy ladies, contain many red corpuscles, but because as a child I saw its numbers lying upon the table in the "library," as much a part of that table as the big vase lamp that glowed above it.

My father and mother read the magazine with much enjoyment, for, doubtless, when its editor was young, the precious prose and poetry of Araminta Perkins and her ilk satisfied him not at all.

Therefore, in memory of days that will never come again, I read this old favorite; sometimes--I must confess it--with pain.

It chanced that a story about horses--aye, race horses--was approved and sanctified by the august editor.

This story, when I found it sandwiched between _Jane Somebody's Impressions Upon Seeing an Italian Hedge_, and three verses ent.i.tled _Resurgam_, or something like that, I straightway bore to "Blister"

Jones, horse-trainer by profession and gentleman by instinct.

"What that guy don't know about a hoss would fill a book," was his comment after I had read him the story.

I rather agreed with this opinion and so--here is the book.

THE THOROUGHBRED

Lead him away!--his day is done, His satin coat and velvet eye Are dimmed as moonlight in the sun Is lost upon the sky.

Lead him away!--his rival stands A calf of s.h.i.+ny gold; His masters kneel with lifted hands To this base thing and bold.

Lead him away!--far down the past, Where sentiment has fled; But, gentlemen, just at the last, Drink deep!--_the thoroughbred_!

BLISTER JONES

BLISTER

How my old-young friend "Blister" Jones acquired his remarkable nickname, I learned one cloudless morning late in June.

Our chairs were tipped against number 84 in the curving line of box-stalls at Latonia. Down the sweep of whitewashed stalls the upper doors were yawning wide, and from many of these openings, velvet black in the sunlight, sleek snaky heads protruded.

My head rested in the center of the lower door of 84. From time to time a warm moist breath, accompanied by a gigantic sigh, would play against the back of my neck; or my hat would be pushed a bit farther over my eyes by a wrinkling muzzle--for Tambourine, gazing out into the green of the center-field, felt a vague longing and wished to tell me about it.

The track, a broad tawny ribbon with a lace-work edging of white fence, was before us; the "upper-turn" with its striped five-eighths pole, not fifty feet away. Some men came and set up the starting device at this red and white pole, and I asked Blister to explain to me just what it meant.

"Goin' to school two-year-olds at the barrier," he explained. And presently--mincing, sidling, making futile leaps to get away, the boys on their backs standing clear above them in the short stirrups--a band of deer-like young thoroughbreds a.s.sembled, thirty feet or so from the barrier.

Then there was trouble. Those sweet young things performed, with the rapidity of thought, every lawless act known to the equine brain. They reared. They plunged. They bucked. They spun. They surged together.

They scattered like startled quail. I heard squeals, and saw vicious s.h.i.+ny hoofs lash out in every direction; and the dust spun a yellow haze over it all.

"Those jockeys will be killed!" I gasped.

"Jockeys!" exclaimed Blister contemptuously. "Them ain't jockeys--they're exercise-boys. Do you think a jock would school a two-year-old?"

A man, who Blister said was a trainer, stood on the fence and acted as starter. Language came from this person in volcanic blasts, and the seething ma.s.s, where infant education was brewing, boiled and boiled again.

"That bay filly's a nice-lookin' trick, Four Eyes!" said Blister, pointing out a two-year-old standing somewhat apart from the rest.

"She's by Hamilton 'n' her dam's Alberta, by Seminole."

The bay filly, I soon observed, had more than beauty--she was so obviously the outcome of a splendid and selected ancestry. Even her manners were aristocratic. She faced the barrier with quiet dignity and took no part in the whirling riot except to move disdainfully aside when it threatened to engulf her. I turned to Blister and found him gazing at the filly with a far-away look in his eyes.

"Ole Alberta was a grand mare," he said presently. "I see her get away last in the Crescent City Derby 'n' be ten len'ths back at the quarter.

But she come from nowhere, collared ole Stonebrook in the stretch, looked him in the eye the last eighth 'n' outgamed him at the wire.

She has a hundred 'n' thirty pounds up at that.

"Ole Alberta dies when she has this filly," he went on after a pause.

"Judge Dillon, over near Lexington, owned her, 'n' Mrs. Dillon brings the filly up on the bottle. See how nice that filly stands? Handled every day since she was foaled, 'n' never had a cross word. Sugar every mawnin' from Mrs. Dillon. That's way to learn a colt somethin'."

At last the colts were formed into a disorderly line.

"Now, boys, you've got a chance--come on with 'em!" bellowed the starter. "Not too fast . . ." he cautioned. "Awl-r-r-right . . . let 'em go-o-!"

They were off like rockets as the barrier shot up, and the bay filly flashed into the lead. Her slender legs seemed to bear her as though on the breast of the wind. She did not run--she floated--yet the gap between herself and her struggling schoolmates grew ever wider.

"Oh, you Alberta!" breathed Blister. Then his tone changed. "Most of these wise Ikes talk about the sire of a colt, but I'll take a good dam all the time for mine!"

Standing on my chair, I watched the colts finish their run, the filly well in front.

"She's a wonder!" I exclaimed, resuming my seat.

"She acts like she'll deliver the goods," Blister conceded. "She's got a lot of step, but it takes more'n that to make a race hoss. We'll know about _her_ when she goes the route, carryin' weight against cla.s.s."

The colts were now being led to their quarters by stable-boys. When the boy leading the winner pa.s.sed, he threw us a triumphant smile.

"I guess she's bad!" he opined.

"Some baby," Blister admitted. Then with disgust: "They've hung a fierce name on her though."

"Ain't it the truth!" agreed the boy.

"What _is_ her name?" I asked, when the pair had gone by.