The Ways of Griselda

“Of course you don’t know what her name is,” I said, as we stood examining the sleek little black mare Jonathan had just brought up from the city.

“No. Forgot to ask. Don’t believe they’d have known anyway one of a hundred or so.”

“Well, we’ll name her again. Dear me she’s rather plain! Probably she’s useful.”

“Hope so,” said Jonathan. Then, stepping back a little, in a slightly grieved tone, “But I don’t call her plain. Wait till she’s groomed up

“It’s that droop of her neck sort of patient and the way she drops one of her hips if they are hips.”

“But we want a horse to be patient.”

“Yes. I don’t know that I care about having her look so terribly much so as this. I think I’ll call her Griselda.”

“Now, why Griselda?”

“Why, don’t you know? She was that patient creature, with the horrid husband who had to keep trying to see just how patient she was. It’s a hateful story enough to turn any one who brooded on it into a militant suffragette.”

“But you can’t call a horse Griselda not for common stable use, you know.”

“Call her ‘Griz’ for short. It does very well.”

Jonathan jeered a little, but in the family the name held. Our man Hiram said nothing, but I think in private he called her “Fan” or “Beauty” or “Lady,” or some such regulation stable name.

Called by any name, she pleased us, and she was patient. She trotted peacefully up hill and down, she did her best at ploughing and haymaking and all the odd jobs that the farm supplied. She stood when we left her, with that same demure, almost overdone droop of the neck that I had first noticed. When I met Jonathan at the station, she stood with her nose against a snorting train, looking as if nothing could rouse her.

“Good little horse you got there,” remarked the station agent. “Where’d you find her?”

“Oh, I picked her out of a bunch down in the city,” said Jonathan casually. “I didn’t think I knew much about horses, but I guess I was in luck this time.”

“Guess you know more about horses than you’re sayin’.” And Jonathan, thus pressed, admitted with suitable reluctance that he had now and then been able to detect a good horse by his own observation.

On the way home he openly congratulated himself on his find. “I really wasn’t sure I knew how to pick out a horse,” he remarked, in a glow of retrospective modesty, “but I certainly got a treasure this time.”

Griz had been with us about two weeks, and all went well. Then another horse was needed for farm work, and one was sent up one Kit by name a big, pleasant, rather stupid brown mare.

“They do say two mares don’t git on so well together as a mare ’n a horse,” remarked Hiram.

“But these are both such quiet creatures,” I protested, to which Hiram made no answer. Hiram seldom made an answer unless fairly cornered into it.

For two or three days after the new arrival nothing happened, so far as we knew, except that Griz always laid her ears back, and looked queer about her under lip, whenever Kit was led in or out of the stall next her, while Kit always huddled up close to her manger whenever Griz was led past her heels. Once or twice Griz slipped her halter in the stall, and Hiram said there was a place on Kit that looked as if she had been kicked, but when we scrutinized Griz, neck a-droop and eyes a-blink, we found it hard to think ill of her. Besides, Jonathan was now fairly committed to the opinion that he had “got a treasure this time.” “Kit may have hurt herself lying down,” he suggested, and again Hiram made no answer.

Then one night, sometime during the very small, very dark, and very sleepy hours, we were awakened by awful sounds. “What is it? What is it?” I gasped.

Crash! Bang! Boom! The trampling of hoofs! heavy, hollow pounding! the tearing and splintering of wood! all coming from the barn, though loud enough, indeed, to have come from the next room.

Jonathan was up in an instant muttering, “Where are my rubber boots? and my coat?”

“Jonathan! what a combination!”

But he was gone, and I heard the snap of the lantern and the slam of the back door almost before the rocking-chair in the sitting-room that he had hit and talked to had stopped rocking. Then I heard him calling outside Hiram’s window and then he ran past our window, out to the barn. I wished he had waited for Hiram, but I had an undercurrent of pleasure in hearing him run. Jonathan’s theory is that there is never any hurry, and now and then I like to have this notion jolted up a little.

Meanwhile the awful sounds had ceased. There was the rumble of the stable door, a pause, and Jonathan’s voice in conversational tones. Next came the flashing of Hiram’s lantern, and the tromp, tromp, tromp, in much quicker tempo than usual, of Hiram’s heavy boots. Hiram’s theory was a good deal like Jonathan’s, so this also gave me pleasure. Finally, there came the flash of another lantern, and I recognized the quick, short step of Mrs. Hiram. I smiled to myself, picturing the meeting between her and Jonathan, for I knew just how Jonathan was costumed. In two minutes I heard her steps repassing, and in five minutes Jonathan returned. He was chuckling quietly.

“I guess Griz got all she needed didn’t know either of ’em had so much spunk in ’em.”

“What happened?”

“Don’t know, exactly, but when I opened that door, there was Griz, just inside, no halter on, head down, meek as Moses, as far away from Kit’s heels as she could get she’s got the mark of them on her leg and her flank.”

“Is she hurt? or Kit?”

“No, not so far as we can see, not to amount to anything except maybe Griz’s feelings.”

“And what about Mrs. Hiram’s feelings?”

Jonathan laughed aloud. “I was inside with Kit, and she called out to know if she could help.”

“And what did you say?”

“I said, ‘Not on your life.’ "

“So that was why she came back. Did you really say,’Not on your life,’ or did you only imply it in your tone, while you actually said, ’No, thank you very much’?”

“I really said it. At least, I don’t remember conversations the way you do, but I didn’t feel a bit like thanking anybody, and I don’t believe I did.”

“Well, I wish I’d heard you. One misses a good deal

“You can see the stable to-morrow. That’ll keep. They must have had a time of it! The walls are marked and splintered as high as I can reach. And I don’t believe Kit’ll cringe when Griz passes her any more.”

“Of course you remember Hiram said two mares didn’t usually get on very well, and even when they’re chosen by a good judge of horses

After that the two did get along peaceably enough, and Jonathan assured me that all horses had these little affairs. One day we drove over to the main street of the village on an errand.

“Will she stand?” I questioned.

“Better hitch her, perhaps,” said Jonathan, getting out the rope. He snapped it into her bit-ring, then threw the other end around a post and started to make a half-hitch. But as he drew up the rope it was suddenly jerked out of his hand. He looked up and saw Griselda’s patient head waving high above him on the end of an erect and rebellious neck, the hitch-rope waggling in loops and spirals in the air, and the whole outfit backing away from him with speed and decision. He was so astonished that he did nothing, and in a moment Griz had stopped backing and stood still, her head sagging gently, the rope dangling.

“Well I’ll be ” I didn’t try to remember just what Jonathan said he would be, because it doesn’t really matter. We both stared at Griz as if we had never seen her before. Griz looked at nothing in particular, she blinked long lashes over drowsy, dark eyes, and sagged one hip.

“She’s trying to make believe she didn’t do it but she did,” I said.

“Something must have startled her,” said Jonathan, peering up and down the deserted street. Two roosters were crowing antiphonally in near-by yards, and a dog was barking somewhere far off.

“What?” I said.

“You never can tell, with a horse.”

“No, apparently not,” I said, smiling to myself; and I added hastily, as I saw Jonathan go forward to her head, “Don’t try it again, please! I’ll stay by her while you go in. Please!” For I had detected on Jonathan’s face a look that I very well knew. It was the same expression he had worn that Sunday he led the calf to pasture. He made no answer, but stood examining the hitch-rope.

“No use,” he said, quietly releasing it and tossing its coil into the carriage, “It’s too rotten. If it snapped, she’d be ruined.”

I breathed freer. I privately hoped that all the hitch-ropes at the farm were rotten.

“Griz stands perfectly well without hitching,” I said as we drove home, “Why do you force an issue?”

“I didn’t. She did. She’s beaten me. If I don’t hitch her now, she’ll know she’s master.”

“Oh, dear!” I sighed. “Let her be master! Where’s the harm? It’s just your vanity.”

“Perhaps so,” said Jonathan.

When he agrees with me like that I know it’s hopeless.

The next night he wheeled in at the big gate bearing about his shoulders a coil of heavy rope.

“It looks like a ship’s cable,” I said.

“Yes,” he responded, leaning his bicycle against his side, and swinging the coil over his head. “I want it for mooring purposes. Think it’ll moor Griz?”

“Jonathan!” I exclaimed, “you won’t!”

“Watch me,” said Jonathan, and he proceeded to explain to me the working of the tackle.

One end had a ring in it, and as nearly as I remember, the plan was to put the rope around her body, under what would be her arm-pits if she had arm-pits, horses’ joints are never called what one would expect, of course, run the end through the ring, then forward between her legs and through the bit-ring.

“Then, when she sets back, it cuts her in two,” he concluded cheerfully.

“But you don’t want her in two,” I protested.

“She won’t set back,” he responded; “at least, not more than once. To-morrow’s Sunday; I’ll have to hitch her at church.”

I hoped it would rain, so we needn’t go, but we were having a drought and the morning dawned cloudless. We reached the church just on the last stroke of the bell. The women were all within; the men and boys lounging in the vestibule were turning reluctant feet to follow them.

“You go right in,” said Jonathan, “I’ll be in soon.”

I turned to protest, but he was already driving round to the side, and a hush had fallen over the congregation within that made it embarrassing to call. Besides, one of the deacons stood holding open the door for me.

I slipped into a pew near the back, with the apologetic feeling one often has in an old country church a feeling that one is making the ghosts move along a little. They did move, of course, probably ghosts are always polite when one really meets them, and I sat down. Indeed, I was thinking very little of ghosts that day, or of the minister either. My ears were cocked to catch and interpret all the noises that came in through the open windows on my left. My eyes wandered in that direction, too, though the clear panes revealed nothing more exciting than flickering maple leaves and a sky filmed over by veils of cloud.

The moralists tell us that what we get out of any experience depends upon what we bring to it. What I brought to it that morning was a mind agog, attuned to receive these expected outside sounds. To all such sounds the service within was merely a background a background which didnt know its place, since it kept pushing itself more or less importunately into the foreground. I sat there, of course, with perfect propriety of demeanor, but my reactions were something like this:

Hymn 912 ... seven stanzas! horrors! oh! omit the 3d, 5th, and 6th well, I should hope so!... I can’t hear a thing while this is going on!... He hasn’t come in yet! Scripture reading for to-day why can’t he give us the passage and let us read it for ourselves? well, his voice is rather high and uneven, I think I could make out Jonathan’s through the loopholes in it.... There! What was that, I wonder! Sounded like shouting, oh, why can’t he talk softly! Let us unite in prayer. Ah! now we’ll have a long, quiet time, anyway!... if only he wouldn’t pray quite so loud! Why pray aloud at all, anyway? I like the Quaker way best: a good long strip of silence, where your thoughts can wash around in any fashion that There! No yes no it’s just people going by on the road.... Maybe he’s in the back of the church now, waiting for the close of the prayer. Seems as if I had to look.... Well, he isn’t.... For thy name’s sake, amen.

And then the collection, with an organ voluntary the while now why an organ voluntary? Why not leave people to their thoughts some of the time?

And at last, the sermon: The text to which I wish to call your attention this morning my attention, forsooth! My attention was otherwise occupied. Ah! A puff of warm, sweet air from behind me, and the soft, padding noise of the swinging doors, apprised me of an incomer. A cautious tread in the aisle I moved along a little to make room.

In a city church probably I should have thrown propriety to the winds and had the gist of the story out of him at once, but in a country church there are always such listening spaces, the very pew-backs and cushions seem attentive, the hymnals creak in their racks, and the little stools cry out nervously when one barely touches them. It was too much for me. I was coerced into an outer semblance of decorum. However, I snatched a hasty glance at Jonathan’s face. It was quite red and hot-looking, but calm, very calm, and I judged it to be the calm, not of defeat nor yet of settled militancy, but of triumph. I even thought I detected the flicker of a grin, the mere atmospheric suggestion of a grin, as if he felt the urgent if furtive appeal in my glance. At any rate, Jonathan was all right, that was clear. And as to Griz whether she was still one mare or two half-mares it didn’t so much matter. And now for the sermon! I gathered myself to attend.

As we stood up for the last hymn, I whispered, “How did it go?”

“All right. She’s hitched,” was the answer.

After church there was the usual stir of sociability, and when I emerged into the glare of the church steps, I saw Jonathan driving slowly around from the rear. Griz walked meekly, her head sagged, her eyes blinked.

“Good quiet little horse you’ve got there,” said a deacon over my shoulder; “don’t get restless standing, the way some horses do.”

“Yes, she’s very quiet,” I said.

I got in, and at last, as we drove off, the flood-gates of my impatience broke:

“Well?” I said, “well?”

“Well ” said Jonathan.

“Well? Tell me about it!”

“I’ve told you. I hitched her.”

“How did you hitch her?”

“Just the way I said I would.”

“Didn’t she mind?”

“Don’t know.”

“Did she make a fuss?”

“Not much.”

“What do you mean by much?”

“Oh, she set back a little.”

“Do any harm?”

“No.”

“Hurt herself?”

“Guess not.”

“Jonathan, you drive me distracted you have no more sense for a story

“But there was nothing in particular

“Now, Jonathan, if there was nothing in particular, why didn’t you get into church till the sermon was begun, and why were you so red and hot?”

Jonathan smiled indulgently. “Why, of course, she didn’t care about being hitched. I thought you knew that. But it was perfectly easy.”

And that was about all I could extract by the most artful questions. I took my revenge by telling Jonathan the deacon’s compliment to Griz. “He said she didn’t get restless standing, the way so many horses did. I thought of mentioning that you were a rather good judge of horses, in an amateur way, but then I thought it might seem like boasting, so I didn’t.”

After that, of course, I didn’t really deserve to hear the whole story, but the next night I happened to be in the hammock while Jonathan was talking to a neighbor at the front gate, and he was relating the incident with detail enough to have satisfied the most hungry gossip. Only thus did I learn that Bill Howard, who had wound the rope twice round the post to give himself a little leeway, was drawn right up to the post when she set back; that they had been afraid the headstall would tear off; that they had been rather nervous about the post, and other such little points, which I had not been clever enough to elicit by my questions.

Now, why? Probably a man likes to tell a story when he likes to tell it. I find myself wondering how much Odysseus told Penelope about his adventures when she got him to herself for a good talk. Is it significant that his really long story was told to the King of the PhA|acians?

As to Griz: it would perhaps not be worth while to recount her subsequent history. It was a curious one, consisting of long stretches of continuous and ostentatious meekness, broken by sudden flare-ups which, after their occurrence, always seemed incredible. She never again “set back” when Jonathan was the one to hitch her, but this was a concession made to him personally, and had no effect on her general habits. We talked of changing her name, but could never manage it. We thought of selling her, but she was too valuable most of the time. And when we finally parted from her our relief was deeply tinged with regret.

I have sometimes wondered whether such flare-ups were not the natural and necessary means of recuperation from such depths of meekness. I have even wondered whether the original Griselda may not have but this is not a dissertation on early Italian poetry, nor on the nature of women.