Horse of a Different Color (24 page)

He leaned forward, looked me full in the eyes, and said, “I’d like to tell you right now that—in my opinion, you understand—you’re no more likely to die of diabetes than I am, but before I do it I want to make one more experiment. This next week I want you to work just as hard as you worked last week. For the first three days you’re to stick rigidly to the diet the Boston specialists put you on. For the last three you’re to eat as you have been for the past three months. I’m going to give you half a dozen large sample bottles in mailing tubes, and I want you to mail me your entire first specimen every morning. Then, today a week, I want you back here after so completely exhausting yourself that you can barely make it up the stairs. Now run along and let me get to work. I’ve got forty calls to make before bedtime.”

One of the most difficult things I ever had to do was to get out of McCook without first sending telegrams off to Edna and the folks back home, telling them it had all been a mistake, that I’d never really had diabetes, and that my chances of living to old age were fully as good as the average man’s. But it would have been senseless to do anything of the kind before Dr. DeMay was thoroughly satisfied that his diagnosis was correct. To avoid temptation I stayed in McCook only long enough to buy a dozen cans of salmon, a gallon of sauerkraut, and five pounds of gluten flour. Then I headed for Cedar Bluffs as fast as I could drive.

I didn’t even tell Effie or the Miners what Dr. DeMay believed he had discovered, but pitched into the work as hard as I could go. The last heifer Nick had butchered was one of the first I’d bought. She’d been on a corn and alfalfa diet only ten weeks but had gained nearly two hundred pounds. The beef from any animal fattened that rapidly is bound to be as tender and juicy as squab. When I started cutting the forequarters that afternoon I noticed that the fat was white as Carrara marble, and the lean looked as though it were flecked with snowflakes, a sure sign of tenderness and delicious flavor.

Probably because I couldn’t keep the folks at home out of my mind, I got the idea of sending them one of the loins from that heifer. The weather was cool, perishable express should reach Boston in three days, and there was little risk that a large piece of prechilled meat would spoil in that length of time. I wrapped the thirty-pound loin in clean, loosely woven burlap, tagged it with my mother’s name and address, raced back to McCook, and got it aboard the eastbound express train.

That evening I wrote to Edna but found it hard to hold back the news I wanted most to tell her. To keep from it I wrote nearly two pages about George Miner and Effie Simons, saying that George had been a second father to me and that Effie, old enough to be my mother, had taken me under her wing as if I were an orphan chick. Then I told her about my having been in the cattle and hog feeding business, and that I’d gone somewhat in debt when the livestock market broke, but that with advice and help from George and Effie I was getting myself pulled out of the hole. To fill out the page I wrote that I’d expressed home the beef loin, and asked if she’d drop by and tell my mother that the outside of the piece might become slimy and ill-smelling in shipment, but to trim away an inch all around and the rest would be as sweet and tender as a ripe pear. To avoid mentioning love, I closed my letter, “Ever and ever, Ralph.”

The morning I went back to Dr. DeMay I exhausted myself so completely by running that I was staggering when I reached his office. He tested and retested a sample of my urine, then slouched down into his big leather swivel-chair, clasped his hands behind his head, and rocked contentedly.

“Son,” he told me, “I’ve seen many a time when there was a blizzard blowing and I had to make a dozen calls way out on the divides to treat nothing more serious than bellyaches, and knew I’d be lucky to collect two dollars for the day’s work. Those times a country doctor feels like cussing himself for having gone into the medical profession, but it takes only one case like yours to make up for all the rest of it, over and over again. I’m only a general practitioner, and from a school those Boston specialists would probably look down their noses at, but I’d stake my life that they were as wrong in their diagnosis as in their prognosis that you could live no more than six months.

“You have incipient diabetes, and probably always will have, but I predict that you’ll live to dandle many a grand-baby on your knee. Go on home and live a normal life like any other man, but don’t ever forget this: the good God that gave you that body gave you the responsibility of caring for it. No reasonable amount of work will hurt you so long as you balance it with proper nourishment and rest, but another abusing such as you gave yourself during the war could be fatal. You’ll have to avoid exhaustion, and for the rest of your life you should never go more than three months without a thorough physical examination. Now run along and take care of yourself. Or better still, get a good wife to take care of you. You’re at the stage in life where you ought to have a home and family.”

“That’s just what I intend to do,” I told him, thanked him for all he’d done for me, and ran down the stairs two at a time. I kept right on running to the depot, intending to send telegrams to Edna and my mother. I had the one to Edna half written when I changed my mind. Her letters had never been more than friendly, and our engagement had been broken because I got hot-headed and threw the ring away, not because my health had failed. I’d been away nearly three years, and the chances were ten to one that she was in love with someone else if not already engaged to him. Before I made a complete jackass of myself, I’d better write my sister Grace and find out how matters stood.

When I got home there were two letters in the mailbox: a thick one from my mother and a thin one from Edna. I ripped the envelope off the thin one and found the letter almost formal, the way people sometimes talk when they’re self-conscious.

Edna started her letter by telling me she’d been up to my mother’s house, that everyone was well, and that the loin of beef had arrived safely. As I had anticipated, it required only a little trimming to remove the shipping damage. My mother had insisted that she take home a big steak, and her parents agreed with her that I was to be congratulated for producing such fine beef. I was most fortunate to have such loyal friends as Mr. Miner and Mrs. Simons. She was glad I’d found a second father in Mr. Miner, and knew how gratified I must be at having recovered from my financial reverses. After another paragraph or two about happenings at the church she closed her letter, as always, “Sincerely, Edna.”

I was so disappointed that I stuffed both letters into my pocket, and for the rest of the day I kept too busy to think about anything but the work I was doing. Nick had gone to the slaughterhouse and I’d finished washing the supper dishes before I thought of my mother’s letter again, sat down on the back steps, and opened it.
“Dear Son,”
she wrote:

In the next two or three paragraphs Mother told how good the meat was, which of the neighbors she’d given steaks from it, and that she’d insisted upon Edna’s taking home a big sirloin. Then she wrote, “
I’m sure that her affection for you has never wavered since you were childhood sweethearts, and Gracie tells me that she has never had another steady beau. I pray God for the day when your health has improved enough that you can again ask her to be your wife.
”

I don’t remember just what I said to Edna in the letter I wrote her that evening—and we’ve lost it somewhere during the forty-odd years we’ve been married—but it did the job I wanted it to do. Her only objection was that she didn’t want to bring up our children in Beaver Valley, but in a city with fine schools and other cultural advantages.

I wanted her so much that I’d have gone anywhere or done anything to make her happy, but the West and horses and cattle had been in my blood from boyhood, and I didn’t want the city to be Boston. I tried to write it to her, but couldn’t find a way to put it on paper without seeming to be bossy, so drove to McCook and called her on long distance telephone. She understood perfectly, and we compromised on Kansas City, the gateway between East and West, and settled on January 25, 1922, as our wedding day.

25

The End of My Run

W
ITH
the date set, I began drawing the reins tighter into my hands, as any horseman does when nearing the end of his run. I started by putting a little pressure on the slowest of my meat customers, asking them to turn in whatever livestock was necessary to square their accounts. Then, by shipping out a carload of fat heifers, one of mixed cattle, and two of bacon hogs, I cut my pasture stock down to what I’d need for butchering until the end of the railroad contract. The check for the shipment came in on the fifteenth of November and, using all but two hundred dollars of my trading account, I paid off the last dime of my debt.

I’d known since late October that I had enough accounts on my books and livestock in my pasture to get me entirely out of the hole, and planned to have a celebration dinner for the Miners and Simonses on the day I paid off my debt. Then, when Dr. DeMay made his discovery and Edna wrote that she’d marry me, I thought it would be best to celebrate all my good fortune at one time, so I kept quiet although I wanted to shout the news to everyone.

As soon as I’d made my final payment to the receiver of the Cedar Bluffs bank I crossed the street to the telephone office, and found Effie in a decidedly testy mood. “Do you think you could find somebody to tend the switchboard this evening so you could get away early?” I asked.

She looked perplexed, frowned, and told me, “Reckon I prob’ly could, but I sure don’t aim to. What’s goin’ on anyways, a shivaree? Whatever it is, it can’t amount to a tinker or I’d of heard somethin’ about it over the wires.”

“You couldn’t have heard about this,” I said, “because I’m the only one who knows about it.”

“Hmmfff!” she sniffed, “then I don’t reckon it amounts to enough to lose sleep over. What is it?”

“Nothing much,” I said. “I was planning to have a little dinner party over at the Keystone Hotel for a half a dozen of my best friends, and hoped you and Guy could be there.”

Effie got over her belligerency in a hurry, but asked, “Why don’t you wait till Sunday night when I’ll be closin’ the switchboard early anyways, and when everybody won’t be wore out with a day’s work? Why in the name of common sense do you want to have a party in the middle of a week?”

“Because I thought this would be a good day for celebrating,” I said. “Ten minutes ago I paid off the last dime of my . . . ”

Before I could finish the sentence Effie came off her chair like a charging grizzly, both arms spread wide, and wailing, “God love you, boy!”

After she’d nearly smothered me, she held me at arm’s length with one hand, wiped tears off her cheeks with the back of the other, and told me, “I knew all the time you could do it, but I never in this wide world guessed you could do it this soon.”

“It would have taken me forever if it hadn’t been for the help that you and George Miner gave me,” I said.

“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 little 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.