Short Stories of Various Types | Page 7

gaunt head which appeared in the doorway was entirely
unexpected. It was the cavernous and melancholy head of an incredibly
thin, old, whitish horse. This head waggled slowly from side to side;
the nostrils vibrated; the mouth opened, and the hollow cough sounded
again.
Recovering themselves, Penrod and Sam underwent the customary
human reaction from alarm to indignation.
"What you want, you ole horse, you?" Penrod shouted. "Don't you
come coughin' around me!"
And Sam, seizing a stick, hurled it at the intruder.
"Get out o' here!" he roared.
The aged horse nervously withdrew his head, turned tail, and made a
rickety flight up the alley, while Sam and Penrod, perfectly obedient to
inherited impulse,[21-1] ran out into the drizzle and uproariously
pursued. They were but automatons of instinct,[21-2] meaning no evil.
Certainly they did not know the singular and pathetic history of the old
horse who had wandered into the alley and ventured to look through the
open door.
This horse, about twice the age of either Penrod or Sam, had lived to
find himself in a unique position. He was nude, possessing neither
harness nor halter; all he had was a name, Whitey, and he would have
answered to it by a slight change of expression if any one had thus
properly addressed him. So forlorn was Whitey's case, he was actually
an independent horse; he had not even an owner. For two days and a

half he had been his own master.
Previous to that period he had been the property of one Abalene Morris,
a person of color, who would have explained himself as engaged in the
hauling business. On the contrary, the hauling business was an
insignificant side line with Mr. Morris, for he had long ago given
himself, as utterly as fortune permitted, to that talent which, early in
youth, he had recognized as the greatest of all those surging in his
bosom. In his waking thoughts and in his dreams, in health and in
sickness, Abalene Morris was the dashing and emotional practitioner of
an art[22-1] probably more than Roman in antiquity. Abalene was a
crap-shooter. The hauling business was a disguise.
A concentration of events had brought it about that, at one and the same
time, Abalene, after a dazzling run of the dice, found the hauling
business an actual danger to the preservation of his liberty. He won
seventeen dollars and sixty cents, and within the hour found himself in
trouble with an officer of the Humane Society on account of an
altercation with Whitey. Abalene had been offered four dollars for
Whitey some ten days earlier; wherefore he at once drove to the shop of
the junk-dealer who had made the offer and announced his
acquiescence in the sacrifice.
"No, suh!" said the junk-dealer, with emphasis. "I awready done got me
a good mule fer my deliv'ry-hoss, 'n'at ole Whitey hoss ain' wuff no fo'
dollah nohow! I 'uz a fool when I talk 'bout th'owin' money roun' that
a-way. I know what you up to, Abalene. Man come by here li'l bit ago
tole me all 'bout white man try to 'rest you, ovah on the avvynoo.
Yessuh; he say white man goin' to git you yit an' th'ow you in jail
'count o' Whitey. White man tryin' to fine out who you is. He say,
nemmine, he'll know Whitey ag'in, even if he don' know you! He say
he ketch you by the hoss; so you come roun' tryin' fix me up with
Whitey so white man grab me, th'ow me in 'at jail. G'on 'way f'um hyuh,
you Abalene! You cain' sell an' you cain' give Whitey to no cullud man
'in 'is town. You go an' drowned 'at ole hoss, 'cause you sutny goin' to
jail if you git ketched drivin' him."
The substance of this advice seemed good to Abalene, especially as the

seventeen dollars and sixty cents in his pocket lent sweet colors to life
out of jail at this time. At dusk he led Whitey to a broad common at the
edge of town, and spoke to him finally.
"G'on 'bout you biz'nis," said Abalene; "you ain' my hoss. Don' look
roun' at me, 'cause I ain' got no 'quaintance wif you. I'm a man o'
money, an' I got my own frien's; I'm a-lookin' fer bigger cities, hoss.
You got you' biz'nis an' I got mine. Mista' Hoss, good-night!"
Whitey found a little frosted grass upon the common and remained
there all night. In the morning he sought the shed where Abalene had
kept him, but that was across the large and busy town, and Whitey was
hopelessly lost. He had but one eye; a feeble one; and his legs were not
to be depended upon; but he managed to cover a great deal