Justin Morgan Had a Horse: Chapters 1–4

Now the colt whinnied sharply.

Wearily, wearily the man’s steps dragged. As he reached the fence, he rested his arms on the top rail and his whole body seemed to go limp. The boy leaned against the fence too, but not from weariness.

Two rods from them, he shaded his eyes and stared intently.

“Who’s the fledgling you got with you?” he asked, pointing a thumb toward the boy.

And when I mentioned that I’d be going off on a junket till school starts, I could see he wanted to traipse along.

“Or be you smitten on the colts?”

You must be all tuckered out. Why, even as the crow flies, it’s over a hundred mile down here.

“For years I’ve been hankering to buy a harpsichord for my singing class.”

“Justin,” he said, “I ain’t a man to be beholden to anyone. Would you take a colt instead of cash?”

“Besides, he’s halter broke! He’d be the very horse to ride to school.”

Why, I’ve seen Bub nip Ebenezer on the flank, and that big colt knew ’twas just in fun!

“Look-a-here, Justin, see how mannerly this feller is! As a schoolmaster, you know good dispositions from bad.”

He can’t abide ’em! They make him mad as any hornet.

He raised up gingerly, trying to keep the straw in the mattress from crackling.

With an “Oh, me” and an “Oh, my” Mistress Beane got to her feet, using the mantel to hoist herself up.

His footsteps faltered and his small, resolute chin seemed to say, “I could take care of Bub, too. I could.”

His footsteps faltered and his small, resolute chin seemed to say, “I could take care of Bub, too. I could.”

“Joel,” he announced in his first-day-of-school voice, “we have two new pupils with us, and I’m of a mind to make this a pleasant junket. If we swing along at a nice easy pace, we should reach the village of Chicopee before the sun is over our heads. That’s where the little Chicopee River joins up with the big Connecticut. You remember how the Connecticut got its name, don’t you, Joel?”

He turned from the boy, and with a smile let his glance slide over the gangly colts.

We’ll have a fine feast there. Joel and I will catch pike or perch, while you two graze the delicious grass that grows on the banks.

And it wouldn’t surprise me if an obliging farmer would have a nosebag of corn to trade for the writing of a letter or the chanting of a psalm.

A cobbler who joined up with them for a mile or two even offered to buy the big colt in trade for his lapstone and awl.

This sent the children into peals of laughter.

Joel and Bub, however, were lulled by the soft voices of night.

Rain or hot sunshine beating down on their heads, steep trails, skimpy food—nothing discouraged them.

“They climbed Mount Pisgah right over yonder, and from that lofty eminence they looked round about. What they saw pleased them: hills peopled with deer, and down below in the valleys a carpet of green threaded with silver streams and rushing brooks.”

Nearly always a church spire rose from the cluster of homes and sharpened itself against the sky.

They saw flying squirrels leaping from tree to tree, and black bears eating butternuts, and brown weasels scuttling in the underbrush.

They heard the bleating of sheep, and wild geese honking, and beavers slapping their tails against the water.

But Little Bub sauntered aboard as gaily as a youngster going on a picnic.

Through deep grass, across broken country, along the gravelly bed of creeks, uphill and downhill, the little procession ate up the slow miles.

Six days a week they pushed and plodded.

“Awake, thou that sleepest,
For the day of salvation is nigh!”

Joel had to smother his laughter, for the tithingman stood ready with his staff to tap anyone acting unseemly.

Like a flock of hungry starlings, the congregation scattered on the church lawn.

From picnic hampers came thick slices of ham, homemade cheese, and brown-bread sandwiches filled with a rich layer of apple butter.

It was a trundle bed, so short that he had to make an S of his body, and even then his toes poked through the slats.

Then he stood with his own spindly legs braced far apart.

“Wal, now, Morgan,” he drawled as he played with the watch chain looped across his paunch, “I’d say the big feller looks fair to middling, just fair to middling. But that little cob—he won’t be worth no more than five dollar. Not even when he’s growed. Legs too short, for one thing. He just ain’t strung up right, Morgan. Now you’ve asked, and I’ve give it to you straight.”

“Wal, now, Morgan,” he drawled as he played with the watch chain looped across his paunch, “I’d say the big feller looks fair to middling, just fair to middling. But that little cob—he won’t be worth no more than five dollar. Not even when he’s growed. Legs too short, for one thing. He just ain’t strung up right, Morgan. Now you’ve asked, and I’ve give it to you straight.”