July 1st 2006
Richard Champion was a 16 year old Hellraiser well known to the Constable in the small town of Greenland, New Hampshire. In the year 1889, at the tender age of twelve, he corralled a swine herd in the Parson’s garden. At 14 years of age he had painted the police horse green as the Irishman who rode him. He was notorious among fretting mothers as well; children were called off the dusty streets onto the porch around 7 pm every work day. That’s the hour the menfolk doused the fire by the forge and laid down their blacksmithing tools to clean up and head home, or in Dick’s case, get to the tavern at the other end of Main Street.
Dick had a two horse buggy, one of the lightest in town, built by a Boston outfit for a whole year’s salary at his journeyman wages. It consisted of a black laquered cherry wood body with velvet seats and a removable weather drape. The family that gold leafed the capitol dome in Concord was contracted to leaf “Dick Champion†on the seat rail and filigree the dash and boot. How his name flashed in the sun! And his power? The local shaggyfooted farm horses looked like prehistoric mammoths compared to his sleek 16 hand high-steppers.
The carriage house gate would open at the smithy’s and nervous mothers closest to it would call out, “You children get up here on the porch and out of Dick’s way, or that fool headed boy will trample you dead!†And like a tumbling line of dominos, all down the street the little boys would stop throwing rocks at each other and run to the porches and wait anxiously for Dick to roar through town, kicking up a cloud of dust that wouldn’t settle to the ground before he was pulled up short in front of Carlton’s Saloon.
His sprung single-seat two wheeler was a fast looking road cart, out of place amid the springless seat buckboards with hay loads piled high you otherwise saw up and down Main Street. The previous winter he had spent cold nights at the forge’s heat where he custom wrought drop heel horse shafts for a brand new Bradley coupler. This was fitted for dual-bow straight buggy sockets at the other end. Hitched to the pair of saddle horses, he was close to 12 miles an hour coming out of the carriage house, the horses reared up on hind legs for a hundred paces.
At the pinewood bar at Carlton’s, Dick would set his heated forearms to rest and call out for a mug of beer. This afternoon John Thomas was there waiting for him, and called out from the far end of the bar, “Dick Champion, you crazy goat, you and that hotshot sled of yours run over my bitch Goldy last night.â€
“I’m sorry to hear about your wife, but she looked like a dog to me. Otherwise I would have stopped, sir.â€
This riposte was not met with good humor, and John Thomas sprung to his feet and rushed for Dick in a rage. Dick was not generally appreciated; his humor, as you’ve heard, was not the self-deprecating kind. Two coal shovellers from the General Store grabbed Dick and held him while John Thomas landed four of five solid blows to the nose and eyes. Dick was bleeding and barely standing when they released him and stopped Thomas’ from any more quick judgment.
“I want 3 dollars and fifty eight cents restitution from you, boy. By Friday. Or this won’t be the last time your nose runs with blood.â€
Dick wiped his upper lip with the back of his hand and pulled away to look at the thick red smeared there.
“I suppose your right, John Thomas. It won’t be the last time.†Turning to the bar keep, he continued, “Forgive me for not finishing up this fine aperitif, but I’m concerned about staining my good starched shirt.†And so he left.
The truth was, John Thomas was a good friend of the coal shovellers, and built twice as big. There was no sense in fighting. No, fisticuffs were useless. Dick Champion would seduce his wife.
The reader of course knows what happened next, how Dick came knocking at the back door one afternoon, his shirt off, his young muscles strong from working iron, how the wife of John Thomas allowed him in to dress the cut he had on his lower abdomen (given to himself with a file from the farrier’s box).
The reader is no stranger to the ways of men and women, how nurture of one kind leads to one of another kind. I needn’t bore you with details you can well imagine yourself – how she brought him to the bedroom, how he sheepishly took down his breeches…
The point is Dick Champion had one hell of fast horse and buggy outfit, and it got him into a lot of trouble. I want you boys to remember that, and be happy to ride an old swayback nag.
