More Jonathan Papers Part 18

So here we are, said Jonathan, entirely without the time of day.

But plenty of real time all round us, I said. Lets use it, and start.

I avoided Jonathans eye.

We reached the station with an hour and ten minutes to sparebought more ginger-cookies and more milk. As we sat eating them in the midst of the preternatural calm that marks a country railroad station outside of train times, Molly remarked brightly,

Well, I dont see but we got on just as well without a watch, didnt we, Jack? Why do we need watches, anyway? Do _you_ see? she turned to us.

Jack does everything by his watcheats and breathes and sleeps by it

Jack returned, watch in handhe had been getting railroad time from the telegraph operator. Want to set yours while you think of it? he asked Jonathan.

Sorrythank youdidnt bring it, said Jonathan.

By George, man, whatll you do? Real consternation sounded in Jacks tones.

Oh, well get along somehow, said Jonathan. You see, we dont have many engagements, except with the ba.s.s, and they never meet theirs, anyhow.

When the train had gone, I said, Jonathan, why didnt you tell them it was my whim?

Oh, I just didnt, said Jonathan.

As Jonathan had predicted, we did get along somehowgot along rather well, on the whole. There are, of course, some drawbacks to an unwatched life.

You never want to start the next meal till you are hungry, and after that it takes one or two or three hours, as the case may be, to go back to camp and get the meal ready, and by that time you are almost hungrier than you like being. But except for this, and the little matter of meeting trains, it is rather pleasant to break away from the habit of watching the watch, and it was with real regret that, on the last night of our camp, we took our watch to the farmhouse to set it.

Run down, did it? Guess you forgot to wind it. Wellwe do forget things sometimes, all of us do, the farmers wife said comfortingly as she went to look at the clock. Twenty minutes to seven, our clock says. Its apt to be fast, so I guess you wont miss any trains. Father he says hed rather have a clock fast than slow any day, but it dont often get more than ten minutes wrong either way.

And to us, after our two weeks of camp, ten minutes error in a clock seemed indeed slight.

Jonathan, I said, as we walked back along the road, I hate to go back to clock time. I like real time better.

You couldnt do so many things in a day, said Jonathan.

Nomaybe not.

But maybe that wouldnt matter.

Maybe it wouldnt, I said.

VIII

The Ways of Griselda

Of course you dont know what her name is, I said, as we stood examining the sleek little black mare Jonathan had just brought up from the city.

No. Forgot to ask. Dont believe theyd have known anywayone of a hundred or so.

Well, well name her again. Dear meshes rather plain! Probably shes useful.

Hope so, said Jonathan. Then, stepping back a little, in a slightly grieved tone, But I dont call her plain. Wait till shes groomed up

Its that droop of her necksort of patientand the way she drops one of her hipsif they are hips.

But we want a horse to be patient.

Yes. I dont know that I care about having her _look_ so terribly much so as this. I think Ill call her Griselda.

Now, why Griselda?

Why, dont you know? She was that patient creature, with the horrid husband who had to keep trying to see just how patient she was. Its a hateful storyenough to turn any one who brooded on it into a militant suffragette.

But you cant call a horse Griseldanot for common stable use, you know.

Call her Griz for short. It does very well.

Jonathan jeered a little, but in the family the name held. Our man Hiram said nothing, but I think in private he called her Fan or Beauty or Lady, or some such regulation stable name.

Called by any name, she pleased us, and she _was_ patient. She trotted peacefully up hill and down, she did her best at ploughing and haymaking and all the odd jobs that the farm supplied. She stood when we left her, with that same demure, almost overdone droop of the neck that I had first noticed. When I met Jonathan at the station, she stood with her nose against a snorting train, looking as if nothing could rouse her.

Good little horse you got there, remarked the station agent. Whered you find her?

Oh, I picked her out of a bunch down in the city, said Jonathan casually. I didnt think I knew much about horses, but I guess I was in luck this time.

Guess you know more about horses than youre sayin. And Jonathan, thus pressed, admitted with suitable reluctance that he _had_ now and then been able to detect a good horse by his own observation.

On the way home he openly congratulated himself on his find. I really wasnt sure I knew how to pick out a horse, he remarked, in a glow of retrospective modesty, but I certainly got a treasure this time.

Griz had been with us about two weeks, and all went well. Then another horse was needed for farm work, and one was sent upone Kit by namea big, pleasant, rather stupid brown mare.

They do say two mares dont git on so well together as a mare n a horse, remarked Hiram.

But these are both such quiet creatures, I protested, to which Hiram made no answer. Hiram seldom made an answer unless fairly cornered into it.

For two or three days after the new arrival nothing happened, so far as we knew, except that Griz always laid her ears back, and looked queer about her under lip, whenever Kit was led in or out of the stall next her, while Kit always huddled up close to her manger whenever Griz was led past her heels. Once or twice Griz slipped her halter in the stall, and Hiram said there was a place on Kit that looked as if she had been kicked, but when we scrutinized Griz, neck a-droop and eyes a-blink, we found it hard to think ill of her. Besides, Jonathan was now fairly committed to the opinion that he had got a treasure this time. Kit may have hurt herself lying down, he suggested, and again Hiram made no answer.

Then one night, sometime during the very small, very dark, and very sleepy hours, we were awakened by awful sounds. What is it? What _is_ it? I gasped.

Cras.h.!.+ Bang! Boom! The trampling of hoofs!heavy, hollow pounding!the tearing and splintering of wood!all coming from the barn, though loud enough, indeed, to have come from the next room.

Jonathan was up in an instant muttering, Where are my rubber boots?and my coat?

Jonathan! _what_ a combination!