Man of the Family (13 page)

15

Labor-Day Roundup

L
ABOR DAY
morning, Hi rode up to our house just after we'd finished breakfast. He had on a whole new outfit, from Spanish boots to ten-gallon Stetson—only his was nearer being a fifteen-gallon. It was the first time he'd come to our house in more than a year. “Mornin', Little Britches,” he said when I opened the door. “I jest come by to see if you folks was fixin' to go to the roundup.”

“Why, yes, of course, Hi,” I said. “Didn't I tell you I'd ride in the cow horse races? It's only the trick-riding Mother doesn't want me to do. What's the matter, Hi? Come on in and see our new baby.” I couldn't think of anything else to say.

Hi was hugging two packages under his right arm and took his hat off with the other hand. He took it by the side and lifted it easy, as if he were afraid he'd roll the brim or muss up his hair—he couldn't have been out of the barbershop ten minutes.

“Right glad to hear it,” he said, as he came up the steps. “Do your maw a heap of good to get out and see some folks. I got half a dozen reserved seat tickets off'n Ed Bemis—right down near the front in the middle of the grandstand, so's your maw wouldn't have to climb no steps.” He said it the same way Philip spoke his first piece at Sunday school.

Mother had been sitting at the table when I went to the door, but as Hi came up the steps I heard the teakettle slide along the top of the stove, and Mother called, “Why, Hi! We're so glad to see you! Come right in; you're just in time for a hot cup of coffee.”

Mother never drank anything except tea for breakfast, but there was some coffee in the mill by the kitchen window. Before she had even finished talking she was turning the crank as fast as she could go. “Gracie, you fix a place for Hi right there beside Ralph, while I put on a couple of fritters. Do you like corn fritters, Hi?”

“Yes, ma'am, I sure do,” Hi said, but neither of us could think what to do or say, and just stood there by the door. At times like that, Mother could be quick and smooth. No one would ever have guessed that she was just up from being sick in bed. She flipped the big iron spider onto the top of the stove, whisked the coffee pot off the shelf, and dumped the mill hopper into it in less than a jiffy.

Then she pulled out the chair next to mine, and said, “Now, you men sit right down; I'll only be a moment. Hi, let me take your hat. My, isn't it a handsome one!”

First, Hi turned toward the chair, and then he turned back toward Mother. “Here's a little somethin' for you women folks to chaw on durin' the roundup show. Hope it didn't get shook up too much in the express.”

Grace and I knew it was a two-pound box of chocolates. There was only thin paper on it, and we could see the roses just the way they looked in the Sears Roebuck catalog. Mother knew what it was, too. “Oh, my!” she said. “I'll bet it's a box of candy. Why, Hi, this was awfully thoughtful of you. Won't we have a lovely time with it, girls? I can't remember when we've had a box of candy like this before, can you? Now, you sit right down, Hi, while I get the fritters going.”

Hi and I sat down, and Hi laid the other box between us on the table. He pushed it over toward me. “'Peared to me, Little . . . 'Peared to us fellas, Ralph, like them boots of yourn was gettin' a mite wore down at the heels, and was pretty near outgrowed, anyhow. These here is dead ringers for mine, only in ten-year-old size. That's right, ain't it? I brung along the ticket so's you could send 'em back if they ain't a good fit.”

It was the first time Hi had ever called me Ralph, and, coming from him, it sounded as funny as it would have, if Mother had called me Little Britches. I don't know why she noticed it, but she did. “You go right ahead and call him Litttle Britches, Hi. I like to hear it. And, from what the children tell me, I don't believe very many people know him by any other name.”

By that time I had the box open and was lifting out my new boots. They were just exactly like Hi's—bright-brown Spanish, with good high heels, sharp-pointed toes, and cut-out patterns around the top. All the other children crowded around my chair, and Mother came from the stove and looked over my shoulder. “My! Aren't they beautiful!” she said. “Hi, I'm afraid you're going to completely spoil this boy.”

“No'm, he don't spoil so easy as some, and he had these here boots a-comin'. He won u—. . . He's always been mighty obligin' with us boys.”

Mother put her hand on my shoulder and squeezed a little bit. “I know about his riding at the fairgrounds,” she said. “We were all very proud of him. . . .”

My heart jumped right up into my throat when Mother said she knew about my riding at the fairgrounds. I looked over at Grace kind of hard, because I thought she must have tattled about the match races of the past week. She looked right back at me, though, and shook her head just the least little bit. Then Mother went on, “. . . and I know his father would have been proud, too. Hi, you must think I'm a very timid woman. Really, I'm not. I know you have taught Ralph to be an excellent little horseman, and I don't worry about his riding with you boys in your cow-horse races—I'm sure you wouldn't put him on a bad horse—it's the match racing and trick-riding that frightens me.”

I think she was going to have said more, but Hi cut in, “There ain't no call to fret, Miz Moody,” he said. “We ain't goin' to let nothin' happen to him, and Tommie Brogan's ridin' in the trick class with me. Little Britches here ain't even registered in the class. But it's hunky-dory if he rides a couple of races? The boys would sure like that.”

“Why, of course he may,” Mother said. “And how I'd love to come down and watch him if the baby were old enough to take out. Hi, do you still remember the first day you put Ralph on a horse?”

Hi looked up at her and grinned. “I sure do, and you was sure scairt, wasn't you?”

Mother just laughed, and said, “There, these fritters are all ready, and so is the coffee.”

I wanted to hug everybody, and I almost forgot to tell Hi “Thank you” for the boots.

Mother poured Hi's coffee and set the cup down by his plate. Then she set one down by my plate, too. It was mostly milk, but there was enough coffee in it to make it brownish—it was the first I'd ever had at home.

I knew Hi must have already had breakfast by that time in the morning, but he ate four or five corn fritters and drank three cups of coffee. Just before he left, Mother brought Elizabeth out from her cradle. I don't think Hi knew much about babies. He moved his finger in front of her face as if she were a horse he was checking for blindness. “Smart, ain't she?” he said. “Look at how her eyes is follerin' my finger.”

Hi held his hat in both hands till he had backed down off the doorsteps. Then he made sort of a little bow toward Mother, and said, “That was sure a right fine breakfast. Them fried cakes was the best I had since I left Texas.”

Hi's coming to see us pleased Mother as much as it did me. We all went out on the well platform and waved to him as he rode away. Then Mother sat down on the top kitchen step, and said, “Isn't it nice to have a good friend like Hi? . . . And he is so proud of you, Son. Just think of his getting those reserved seats so that I might see how well you ride. You tell him how sorry I am that I won't be able to go.”

Then she turned to Grace, and said, “Gracie, you will have to take my place today. Let's get the children ready while Ralph and Philip put the back seat on the wagon. Then you could all drive down together. You girls could take the bottom layer of Hi's box of candy.”

The roundup didn't start till noon, but we got down there by eleven o'clock. I wore my cowboy clothes and my new boots, but all the others wore their Sunday-school things. Grace was as proud as a peacock to take Mother's place—and have reserved seats and a box of candy. Of course, I didn't need a seat because I'd be with Hi and the other riders, so Grace invited Mrs. Snow and Eva to sit with her. Mrs. Snow had Eva buy enough peanuts and popcorn for all of us, and Grace gave them candy out of Hi's box.

Sometimes a show gets started all by itself. That is what ours did on Labor Day. Ed Bemis was the secretary of the roundup, and Katherine Prescott was his girl. Women never went into the infield where they kept the broncos and the bulldogging steers, but Ed took his girl and some of her friends out there just before the first event. I really think it was so they could show off their pretty clothes. The girls all had on long white dresses and carried little parasols, and Katherine was wearing a white mushroom hat—it was nearly as big around as a wash-tub. Just as they were all parading past the bullpens, a longhorn steer jumped out over the poles.

Parasols went flying in every direction, and the girls pulled their dresses clear up to their knees as they ran for the fence. Some of them dived under the bottom rail, and some of them crawled between. Katherine's hat was too big to go either way; and when she came out feet-first, the hat stuck in the rails. In less than two seconds, the steer hooked his horns through it and went tearing around the infield, making his own fashion parade.

I rode Mr. Batchlett's chestnut in the bareback race, but I didn't win. An Indian boy on a mustang beat me by half a length. Hi rode in the trick class and calf roping, and he had worse luck than I did. Tommie Brogan missed a handhold on the pickup trick; and in the roping class, Hi's calf stumbled and fell just as Hi made his throw—the judge didn't even call his time.

I took Fred Aultland's bay out of the corral and warmed him up, bareback, at the north end of the grandstand. That way, I could watch the broncobusting at the same time. I kept worrying about Hi. If a rider starts off in a roundup with bad luck, it will sometimes follow him all the way through. Once in a while, a bronco would only crow-hop, and a buster wouldn't have any chance to show how good he was. And there was always a chance of being dragged with a foot in the stirrup, or of a horse falling on the buster. It seemed as though that would be just about Hi's luck—after Tom missing the handhold and the calf stumbling.

As I watched, Hi came out of chute two, on Old Steamboat, and they came out boiling. You'd have thought the seat of his pants was glued onto that saddle. He was raking Steamboat from shoulder to hip at every pitch, and fanning his hat so hard it looked as though he were trying to put out a fire in the old bronc's ears. Steamboat couldn't have been any crazier if there had been a fire in them. When the ten-second whistle blew, he was flying around like a wildcat on a hot stove, and his heels were kicking in every direction. Ted Ebberts couldn't get within twenty feet of him, but Hi never stopped raking and fanning till Steamboat crossed his feet.

It happened so quick that I didn't have time to catch my breath before it was over. Steamboat somersaulted. Dust flew as though there'd been an explosion. Then Steamboat started to get up—but Hi didn't.

My heart tried to jump out of my mouth. Then I was on the ground, running toward Hi. I'd just ducked under the track fence when Sheriff McGrath's horse knocked me down. My legs wouldn't work, and I just sat there on the track as the sheriff raced in front of the grandstand, yelling, “Are they a doctor here? Are they a doctor here?”

Then Hi rolled over on his stomach and pulled up onto his feet. You should have heard the crowd holler as he waved his hat and walked back across the infield.

On Labor Day, the hundred-dollar race was run at a half mile. That was once around the track, so we lined up at the center of the grandstand. There were twelve of us in the race—most of them were horses and riders I'd never seen before. Some of them raised Cain in the lineup. Fred's bay was fidgety, and I had a little trouble holding him at the line.

The starting gun banged when the bay was rearing, and we didn't get a good start. At the first turn we were in the middle of the pack and couldn't get close to the rail. And we were boxed tight, going into the backstretch. I didn't have to be very smart to see that it had been planned that way. The riders around me—one on each side and one in front—started pulling their horses in so the field could pass us.

I didn't think I could ever get out. There wasn't six inches of room between the heads of the horses beside me and the hips of the buckskin in front. I grabbed the lines short with one hand and stretched way up along the bay's neck—talking into his ear until I got his nose right up against the lead horse's rump. Then I yelled and cut my whip down across that buckskin's rump. I don't think I yelled, either: I shrieked. And those horses spread out like tumbleweeds in a wind.

Fred's bay lengthened his stride a foot, and we were past the buckskin before I needed to pull against the rail for the far turn. At the head of the stretch, we were still a length and a half behind Mr. Batchlett's sorrel, and I cut my whip down across the bay's back. That was the only time I hit him, and the only time I needed to. He pinned his ears tight, and I kept him out far enough that I was sure he couldn't get a whip across his face. At the finish line we were nearly in the center of the strip, and I wasn't sure we'd won till I heard the crowd yelling my name.