Short Stories of Various Types | Page 9

than this'n. What color was he?"
"He was bay. Looky here, Sam"--and now Penrod's manner changed
from the superior to the eager--"you look what kind of horses they have
in a circus, and you bet a circus has the best horses, don't it? Well, what
kind of horses do they have in a circus? They have some black and
white ones, but the best they have are white all over. Well, what kind of
a horse is this we got here? He's perty near white right now, and I bet if
we washed him off and got him fixed up nice he would be white. Well,
a bay horse is worth five hundred dollars, because that's what papa said,
and this horse----"
Sam interrupted rather timidly.
"He--he's awful bony, Penrod. You don't guess that'd make any----"
Penrod laughed contemptuously.
"Bony! All he needs is a little food and he'll fill right up and look good
as ever. You don't know much about horses, Sam, I expect. Why, our
ole horse----"
"Do you expect he's hungry now?" asked Sam, staring at Whitey.
"Let's try him," said Penrod. "Horses like hay and oats the best, but
they'll eat most anything."
"I guess they will. He's tryin' to eat that manger up right now, and I bet
it ain't good for him."
"Come on," said Penrod, closing the door that gave entrance to the
stalls. "We got to get this horse some drinkin'-water and some good
food."
They tried Whitey's appetite first with an autumnal branch which they
wrenched from a hardy maple in the yard. They had seen horses nibble
leaves, and they expected Whitey to nibble the leaves of this branch,
but his ravenous condition did not allow him time for cool

discriminations. Sam poked the branch at him from the passageway,
and Whitey, after one backward movement of alarm, seized it
venomously. "Here! You stop that!" Sam shouted. "You stop that, you
ole horse, you!"
"What's the matter?" called Penrod from the hydrant, where he was
filling a bucket. "What's he doin' now?"
"Doin'! He's eatin' the wood part, too! He's chewin' up sticks as big as
baseball bats! He's crazy!"
Penrod rushed to see this sight, and stood aghast.
"Take it away from him, Sam!" he commanded sharply.
"Go on, take it away from him yourself!" was the prompt retort of his
comrade.
"You had no biz'nuss to give it to him," said Penrod. "Anybody with
any sense ought to know it'd make him sick. What'd you want to go and
give it to him for?"
"Well, you didn't say not to."
"Well, what if I didn't? I never said I did, did I? You go on in that stall
and take it away from him."
"Yes, I will!" Sam returned bitterly. Then, as Whitey had dragged the
remains of the branch from the manger to the floor of the stall, Sam
scrambled to the top of the manger and looked over. "There ain't much
left to take away! He's swallered it all except some splinters. Better
give him the water to try and wash it down with." And, as Penrod
complied, "My gracious, look at that horse drink!"
They gave Whitey four buckets of water, and then debated the question
of nourishment. Obviously, this horse could not be trusted with
branches, and, after getting their knees black and their backs sodden,
they gave up trying to pull enough grass to sustain him. Then Penrod

remembered that horses like apples, both "cooking-apples" and
"eating-apples," and Sam mentioned the fact that every autumn his
father received a barrel of "cooking-apples" from a cousin who owned
a farm. That barrel was in the Williams' cellar now, and the cellar was
providentially supplied with "outside doors," so that it could be visited
without going through the house. Sam and Penrod set forth for the
cellar.
They returned to the stable bulging, and, after a discussion of Whitey's
digestion (Sam claiming that eating the core and seeds, as Whitey did,
would grow trees in his inside), they went back to the cellar for
supplies again--and again. They made six trips, carrying each time a
capacity cargo of apples, and still Whitey ate in a famished manner.
They were afraid to take more apples from the barrel, which began to
show conspicuously the result of their raids, wherefore Penrod made an
unostentatious visit to the cellar of his own house. From the inside he
opened a window and passed vegetables out to Sam, who placed them
in a bucket and carried them hurriedly to the stable, while Penrod
returned in a casual manner through the house. Of his sang-froid[30-1]
under a great strain it is sufficient to relate that, in the kitchen, he said
suddenly to Della, the cook, "Oh, look behind you!" and by the