Horse of a Different Color

by Ralph Moody

  “Fiddlesticks!” she scoffed. “I didn’t do nothin’ but put out a few line calls and take down some orders, and you’ve more’n made up for that in meat you fetched up here.”

  “Don’t try to feed me that stuff,” I told her. “If you’d let me price leftovers the way I intended to I’d never have got out of the hole, and if you hadn’t given me the idea of selling shortening and sausage in buckets and pans I’d have been buried under tons of fatback months ago.” Then I cupped a hand around the back of her neck, drew her to me, and kissed her full on the mouth.

  Effie didn’t do any resisting until I’d planted a good solid smack, then she pulled away and sputtered, “My Land o’ Goshen, what would folks think if somebody was to happen past and see us carryin’ on like a pair of moon-struck sweethearts?” As she backed away a step or two she put both hands to her head and scolded, “You’ve gone and rumpled my hair up till it feels like a magpie’s nest, and my curlin’ tongs are over to the house, and Guy won’t be back from his mail route for another hour. Look, Bud, run over and fetch ’em for me, will you, or I won’t look fit to show my head at a dog fight this evenin’, leave alone a dinner party in the Keystone Hotel. They’re in the top right-hand drawer of the bedroom dresser, wrapped up in a piece of white tissue paper. And fetch along the tall chimbly off’n the lamp in the kitchen; the ones on both these office lamps are so short they leave the end of the tongs touch the wick flame and get all sooted up.”

  When I got back with the chimney and tongs Effie was talking to Mrs. Lincoln on the phone, saying she had to attend a dinner party at McCook that evening, and asking if Lucy would come and tend the switchboard for her. She cupped a hand over the mouthpiece, turned her head, and told me in a stage whisper, “Leave ’em right there on the lamp table, Bud. What time did you say the party was goin’ to commence?”

  I hadn’t said, or thought about it, but whispered back, “Seven o’clock,” and tiptoed out.

  I’d have liked to include Nick in the party, but knew that going would be torture for him, so I stopped at home just long enough to tell him the good news and what I was planning for a celebration, then drove on to the Miner’s.

  I found George on the sunny side of the granary, sorting out the best ears from a freshly harvested load of corn, braiding the husks together, and hanging them up to dry for seed. “How’d you make out with them four carloads you shipped Saturday?” he called as I climbed out of the Maxwell.

  “The best I ever made out with any shipment in my life,” I called back.

  George looked at me in a puzzled, unbelieving way and said, “By jiggers, I didn’t think that stuff you shipped was so fancy; there must’a been somethin’ goin’ on in the livestock market that I ain’t heard about.”

  As I walked toward him I took from my pocket the receipt-in-full the bank receiver had given me, unfolded it, and said, “I doubt it, but here’s what I got out of that shipment,” then held the paper out to him.

  Still with a puzzled expression, George glanced down at the receipt, then looked up at me with his eyes shining. He held out a hand to shake, squeezed mine so hard it hurt, and told me, “I never misdoubted you could do it, son, but I reckoned—times bein’ as hard as what they are now—it would take you leastways four or five years.”

  “It would have taken me half a lifetime if it hadn’t been for your advice and the help Irene and Effie have given me,” I told him.

  George picked up a couple of corn ears, looked down at them as he started braiding the husks together, and said slowly. “I ain’t takin’ a thing away from the girls, but I don’t recollect givin’ you no advice. Of late years I’ve been kind of leery ’bout passin’ it out. If it’s good the folks that take it generally always come to believe the notion was theirs in the first place, but if it turns out to be wrong they never forget where it come from, and it can stir up hard feelin’s. Of course, there’s been times when I’ve sort of honed to stick my finger into somebody else’s business, but . . . ”

  George broke off quickly, looked up at me, and asked, “Now ain’t you proud you took the trail you did when the judgment went ag’in you?”

  “I haven’t anything to be proud about,” I told him. “I took that trail only because I thought it would be better business than taking bankruptcy.”

  “Then you can leave the proud end of it to me,” he said, “but what you done will be a comfort to you as long as you live. You know, son, them heifers I held back when I sold the herd have been doin’ awful good, and it still ain’t too late in the fall to breed ’em for summer calves. What you aimin’ to get into when the railroad contract peters out on you? With the bank closed and all, there won’t be enough shippin’ business in this valley to keep you out of mischief, and I don’t reckon you want to stay in the butcher business the rest of your life.”

  “No,” I said, “I’ll have to find me another horse of a different color to ride from now on, and if you’re willing we might talk about it this evening. I’m going to have a little celebration dinner over at the Keystone Hotel at about seven o’clock, and I’d sure like it if you and Irene would come.”

  “We’d be there if we had to crawl on our hands and knees,” he told me, “and you and I’ll talk some more about them heifers. The way the market’s been actin’ of late I wouldn’t misdoubt me this might be a pretty good time for a young man to start buildin’ a breedin’-stock herd, so’s’t the new crop of young bulls would be ready to sell in about three years.”

  As he spoke, George hung up the hank of ears he’d just braided together, then reached for his jacket and said, “If that dinner’s goin’ to commence at seven o’clock I’d best to make an early start on my chores; I ain’t as spry as what I used to be a few years back.”

  He walked to the Maxwell with me, and Irene came out onto the porch to wave as I drove out of the dooryard. Above the backfiring of the engine I heard George call to her, “Get your glad rags on, old girl; the boy’s havin’ a celebration dinner over to McCook this evenin’ and we’ve got an invite.”

  I drove straight to McCook, went to Dr. DeMay’s office; and was fortunate enough to find him without any patients there. When we’d talked about my health recovery for a few minutes I told him that I’d taken his advice all the way and was going to be married in January. Then I went on to tell him it had been because of George Miner’s encouragement that I’d gone after the railroad meat contract, and that largely because of Effie Simons’s advice and help I’d done so well with my farm trade that I’d been able to pay off the last dollar of the judgment against me that afternoon. I said that I wanted to celebrate with a little dinner that evening for the people who had been responsible for my good fortune, and hoped he and Mrs. DeMay would come.

  Dr. DeMay seemed as happy about my getting out of debt as he had been at his discovery that my diabetes was incipient, and said that he and his wife would be delighted to come to the dinner. I told him then that George and Effie knew about my having paid off my debt, but that I’d kept his discovery and my coming marriage a secret from them as a surprise for the dinner. When I asked if he’d spring the surprise he said he’d handle the diabetes end of it, but that I’d have to do my own talking about getting married.

  I stopped at the hotel just long enough to tell the manager that I wanted a table for seven at seven o’clock, with the finest steak dinner and trimmings his kitchen could turn out. Then I headed for the best clothing store in town. My only city clothes were the secondhand ones I’d bought in Omaha when I went to see Mr. Donovan about the meat contract, but I’d need a complete new outfit for getting married, so it seemed to me that I might as well buy it in time to wear to the dinner. I chose a blue serge suit because I thought it would be more appropriate than anything else for a wedding, but the only one in the store that fitted me in the shoulders was at least six inches too big around the middle. It took a tailor until seven o’clock to make the necessary alterations, and I’d been out of practice long enough that I had a l
ittle trouble with the stiff collar and bow tie, so I was late in getting to the hotel.

  The dinner was a fine one, and by keeping Effie stirred up a bit on the latest Beaver Township gossip I was able to avoid talking heifers with George. Then, as soon as we’d finished the dessert, I told the Miners and Simonses that Dr. DeMay had a surprise for them. He began his story with my first visit to him in the summer of 1919, took it step by step through the more than two years I’d been his patient, told of his exhaustion experiments, and explained why they proved that my malady was not true diabetes. Then he ended his talk by saying, “I’ve told him there’s no reason on earth that he can’t live a long and normal life if he takes reasonably good care of his health, but to make assurance doubly sure I’ve advised him to find a good wife to watch over him.”

  After George had nearly broken my hand while congratulating me, and Effie had called upon God to love me as she wiped away the tears of happiness, I said that I’d been following my doctor’s advice to the very best of my ability. Then I told the whole story of Edna and me, right through from the time she first became my girl until the telephone call in which we’d agreed on the twenty-fifth of January as our wedding date, and Kansas City as the place we’d begin our married life. Of course I didn’t say that Edna was unwilling to bring up a family in Cedar Bluffs, but spoke of her being raised in Boston, and said I thought a move to western Kansas might be too big a change to make right away.

  Dr. and Mrs. DeMay congratulated me and said they thought we’d made a wise decision in choosing Kansas City. Guy and Irene added their congratulations, but said they thought I was making a mistake by not bringing my wife home to Cedar Bluffs. Effie wept until her nose was red and her cheeks streaked, partly in happiness that I’d regained my health and was going to marry my boyhood sweetheart, and partly in disappointment that we weren’t going to make our home in Cedar Bluffs. George was quiet, and stood back while the others were congratulating me. He laid a hand on my shoulder as we left the hotel, and told me, “I guess you know how glad I am for you, son, and it don’t surprise me none that you aim to live in the city, but if you should come to change your mind them heifers will be right there in the pasture for leastways a couple of years.”

  The day before Thanksgiving the railroad job was finished and the crews moved out of Beaver Valley, but I was paid the daily minimum under my contract through the end of November, and my thousand-dollar forfeit deposit was returned.

  So that my farm customers would have plenty of time to do their own butchering for the winter, I asked Effie to put out line calls saying that I’d be going out of the meat business on the tenth of December. I didn’t tell her not to spread the news about my personal life, but I don’t think it would have made much difference anyway. After she’d made the announcement on each line she told the listeners that I’d paid off the last dime of my debts, had fully regained my health, and was leaving Beaver Valley in the middle of December to marry my childhood sweetheart. Then she urged everyone who owed me an account to bring in enough livestock to pay it off.

  All the next week wagon after wagon rolled into my yard, each bringing a hog, a calf, a cow, or a steer. By Saturday, December 10, the balance on my books was down to less than a hundred dollars, and I shipped out four of the most widely mixed carloads of livestock ever to roll over the rebuilt St. Francis branch of the CB&Q. With Kitten the only animal left on the place, our butchering business ended with that shipment. On Sunday it was simply a matter of giving away what little meat remained in the refrigerator, visiting with friends who dropped in to say goodbye, and telling them that before the winter was over I’d bring my wife out to get acquainted with the most beautiful valley and the friendliest people on earth.

  Monday and Tuesday Nick and I scrubbed and polished till the place shone like a new penny, then on Wednesday I had an auction. Including my household furnishings, it brought in as much as my entire investment in the butchering business, although there was little from the slaughterhouse that could be sold.

  Thursday morning I went to Oberlin to say goodbye to Mr. Frickey, John Bivans, and my other friends there, then stopped at Cedar Bluffs for a visit with Bones on my way home. In the afternoon Nick set off for Omaha, driving the Maxwell and carrying a check for fifteen hundred dollars in his pocket. That evening I went up to see Effie, took her a little present, and told her she’d always be my second-best girl. Then I rode over to spend the night with the Miners and turn old Kitten out to graze away her remaining days along the banks of Beaver Creek.

  The next morning—my twenty-third birthday—George drove me to McCook, and with my roving days behind me I swung aboard the eastbound express. I had a fair-sized roll in my pocket, and a couple of thousand dollars in my account at the Farmers National in Oberlin. It wasn’t as much as I’d had when I first went into the livestock business, but I was sure it would be enough, for I believed I could make a living for a wife and family wherever other men could.