Evening Star Newspaper, March 23, 1930, Page 94

1You Have Heard of the Turtle Races and Perhaps You Have Watched the Thoroughbred Horses Coming Dozwn the Home Stretch, but Did You Ever Hear of Caterpillar Races?—If Not, You Should Read of the Great Red Peril, a Champion. Another Prize Story, Complete, Will Appear in The Star’s Magazine Next Sunday. OHN brought his off eye to bear on me:— What do them old coots down to the store do? Why, one of 'em will think up a horse that’s been dead 40 years and then they’ll set around remembering this and that about that hor?e until they've made a resurrection of him. You'd think he was a regular Grattan Bars, the way they talk, telling one thing and another, when a man knows if that horse hadn't 've had a breeching to keep his end off the ground he could hardly have walked from here to Boon- ville. A horse race is a handsome thing to watch if a man has his money on a sure proposition. My pa was always a great hand at a horse ra‘e. But when he took to a boat and my mither he didn't have no more time for it. So he got interested in another sport. 1’id you ever hear of racing caterpillars? No? Well, it used to be a great thing on the canal. My pa used to have a lot of them insects on hand every Fall, and the way he could get them to run would make a man have his eyes examined. 'Ahz way we raced enterpllhé was to set the.n in a napkin ring on a table, one facing one way and one the other. Outside the nap- kin ring was drawed a circle in chalk 3 feet across. Then a man liftr] the ring and the handlers was allowed enc ¥.o to get their cater- pillars started. The one that got outside the chalk circle the first was the one that won the race. I remember my pa tried out a lot of breeds, and he got hold of some pretty fast steppers. But there wasn't one of them could equal Red Puril. To see him you wouldn't believe he coald run. He was all red and kind of stubby, ard he had a sort of wart behind that you'd think would get in his way. There wasn't any- thing fancy in his looks. He'd just set still studying the ground and make you think he was dreaming about last year’s oats; but when you fet him in the starting ring he’d hitch himself up behind like a man lifting on his g illuses, and then he'd light out for glory. lDA come acrost Red Peril down in Western- ville. Ma’s relatives Msided there, and it bering Sunday we’d all gone to church. We was 1iding back in a hired rig with a dandy trotter, and pa was pushing her right along and ma was talking sermon and clothes, and me and niy sister was setting on the back seat playing poke your nose, when all of a sudden pa hollers, “Whoa!” and set the horse right down on the kreeching. Ma let out a holler and come to rest on the dashboard with her head under the horse. “My gracious land!” she says, “What’s hap- pened?” Pa was on the other side of the road right down in the mud in his Sunday pants, a-wrop- ping up something in his yeller handkerchief. Ma began to get riled. “What you doing, pa?” she says. “What you got there?” Pa was putting his handkerchief back into his inside pocket. Then he come back over the wheel and got him a chew. “Leeza,” he says, “I got the fastest cater- pillar in seven counties. It's an act of Provi- dence I seen him, the way he jumped the ruts.” “It's an act of God I ain’t laying dead under the back end of that horse,” says ma. “I've gone and spoilt my Sunday hat.” “Never mind,” says pa; “Red Peril will earn you a new one.” Just like that he named him. He was the fastest caterpillar in seven counties. When we got back onto the boat, while ma was turning up the supper, pa set him down to the table under the lamp and pulled out the handkerchief. “You two devils stand there and there,” he says to me and my sister, “and if you let him get by I'll leather the soap out of you,” £o0 we stood there and he undid the handker- chief, and out walked one of them red, long- haired caterpillars. He walked right to the middle of the table, and then he took a short turn and put his nose in his tail and went to slecp, “Who'd think that insect could make such a break fos freedom as I seen him make?” says pa. snd wue got out a empty Brandret}) bax anc filled 1t up with some towel and pu: the caterpillar inside. “He needs a rest,” says pa. “He needs to get used to his stall. When he limbers up I'll commence training him. Now then,” he says, putting the box on the shelf back of the stove, “don’t none of you say a word about him.” He got out a pipe and set there smoking and figuring, and we could see he was studying out Just how he’d make a world-beater out of that Lug, “What you going to feed him?” asks Ma. “If T wasn't afraid of making him sick,” Pa says, “I'd try him out with milkweed.” Next day we hauled up the Lansing Kill Gorge, Ned Kilbourne, Pa’s driver, come aboard in the morning, and he took a look at the caterpillar. He took him out of the box and felt his legs'and laid him down on the table and went clean over him. “Well,” he says, “he don't look like a great lot, but I've knowed some of that red variety could chug along pretty smart.” Then he touched him with a pin. It was a sudden sight. It looked like the rear end of that caterpillar was racing the front end, but it couldn’t never quite get by. Afore either Ned or Pa could get 2 move Red Peril had made a turn around the sugar bowl and run solid aground in the butter dish. Pa, let out a loud swear. “Look out .c den't pull a tendon,” he says. “Butter’s a Lad thing. A man has to be careful. Jeepers,” he suys, picking him up and taking him over to the stove to dry, “I'll' handle him mysel(.” “I didn't mean harm, Will,” says Ned. “I was just curious.” There was something extraordinary abous that caterpillar. He was intelligent. It seemed he just couldn’t abide the feel of sharp iron. It got so that if Pa reached for the lapel of his coat Red Peril would light out. It must have been he was tender. I said he had a sort of a wart behind, and I guess he liked to find it a place of safety. We was all terrible proud of that bird. Pa took to timing him on the track. He beat all known time holler. He got to know that as soon as he crossed the chalk he would get back safe in his quarters. Only. when we tried sprinting him across the supper table, if he saw a piece of butter he’'d pull up short and bolt back where he come from. He had a mortal fear of butter. WELL, Pa trained him three nights. It was a sight to see him there at the table, a big man with a needle in his hand, moving the lamp around and studying out the identical spot that caterpillar wanted most to get out of the needle’s way. Pretty soon he found it, and then he says to Ned, I'll race him agin all comers at all odds.” “Well, Will,” says Ned, “I guess it's a safe proposition.” We hauled up the feeder to Forestport and got us a load of potatoes. We raced him there against Charley Mack, the bank walker's Leop- ard Pillar, one of them tufted breeds with a row of black buttons down the back. The Leopard was well liked and had won several races that season, and there was quite a few boaters around that fancied him. Pa argued for fa- vorable odds, saying he was racing a maiden caterpillar, and there was a lot of money laid out and Pa and Ned managed to cover the most of it. As for the race, there wasn't any- thing to it. While we was putting him in the ring—one of them birchabrk and sweet grass ones Indians make—Red Peril didn't act very good. I guess the smell and the crowd kind of upset him. He was nervous and kept fidget- ing with his front feet, but they hadn’t more’n lifted the ring than he lit out under the edge as tight as he could make it. Me and my sister was supposed to be in bed, but Ma had gone visiting in Forestport and we'd snuck in and was under the table, which had a red cloth mto it, and I can tell you there was some shout- ing. There was some couldn't believe that in- sect had been inside the ring at all, and there was some said he must be a cross with a dragon fly or a side-hill gouger, but old Charley Mack, that'd worked in the camps, said he guessed Red Peril must be descended from .the cater- pillars Paul Bunyan used to race. He said you could tell by the bump on his tail, which Paul ased to put on all his caterpillars, seeing as how the smallest pointed object he could hold in his hand was a peavy. Well, Pa raced him a couple of more times and he wom just as easy, and Pa cleared up THE SUNDAY STAR, WASH ERIL oo o« = close to $100 in three races. That caterpillar was a mammoth wonder, and word of him got going and people commenced talking him up everywhere, so it was hard to race him around these parts. But about that time the lock keeper of No. 1 on the feeder come across a pretty swift article that the people 'round Rome thought high of. And as our boat was headed down the gorge, word got ahead about Red Peril, and people began to look out for the race, We come into No. 1 about 4 o’clock and Pa tied up right there and went on shore with his box in his pocket and Red Peril inside the box. There must have been 1¢ men crowded into the shanty, and as many more again outside look- ing in the windows and door. The lock tender was a skinny bezabor from Stittville, who thought he knew a lot about racing caterpillars, and, come to think of it, maybe he did. His name was Henry Buscerck, and he had a bad tooth in front he used to suck at a lot. Well, him and Pa set their cateripplars on the table for the crowd to see, and I must say Buscerck's caterpillar was as handsome a brute as you could wish to look at, bright bay with black points and a short fine coat. He had a way of looking right and left, too, that made him handsome. But Pa didn’t bother to look at him. Red Peril was a natural marvel, and he knew it. USCERCK was a sly, twirpish man, and he must've heard about Red Peril—right from the beginning, as it turned out; for he lald out the course in yeller chalk. They used Pa’s ring, a big silver one he'd bought second-hand just for Red Peril. They laid out a lot of money, and Dennison Smith lifted the ring. The way Red Peril histed himself out from under would raise a man’s blood pressure 20 notches. I swear you could see the hair lay down on his back. Why, that black-pointed bay was left nowhere! It didn't seem like he moved. But Red Peril was just gathering him- self for a fast finish over the line when he seen it was yeller. He reared right up; he must’'ve thought it was butter, by Jeepers, the way he whirled on his hind legs and went the way he’d come. Pa begun to get scared, and he shook his needle behind Red Peril, but that caterpillar was more scared of butter than he ever was of cold steel. He passed the other insect afore he'd got halfway to the line. By Cripus, you'd cught to've heard the cheering from the Forestport crews. The Rome men was green. But wien he got to the line, danged if that caterpillar didn't shy again and run around the circle twicet, and then it seemed like his heart had gone in on him, and he crept right back to the middle of the circle and lay there hiding his head. It was the pitifullest sight a man ever loked at. You could almost hear him moaning, and he shook all over. I've never seen & man so riled as Pa was. The water was running right out of his eyes. He picked up Red Peril and he says, “This here's no race.” He picked up his money and he says, “The course was illegal, with that yellow chalk.” Then he squashed the other caterpillar, which was just getting ready to cross the line, and he loks at Buscerck and says, “What's you going to do about that?” Buscerck says, “I'm going to collect my money. My caterpillar would have beat.” “If you want to call that a finish you can,” says Pa, pointing to the squashed bay one, “but a baby could see he’s still got to reach the line. Red Peril got to the wire and come back and got to it again afore your hayseed worm got half his feet on the ground. If it was any ther man owned him,” Pa says, “I'd feel sorry I squashed him.” P He stepped out of the house, but Buscerck laid a-hold of his pants and says, “You got to pay, Hemstreet. A man can't get away with no such excuses in the city of Rome.” Pa didn’t say nothing. He just hauled off and sunk his fist, and Buscerck come to in- side the lock, which was at low level right then. He waded out the lower end and he says, “I'll have you arrested for this.” Pa says, “All right; but if I ever catch you around this lock again I'll let you have a feel with your other eye.” : Nobody else wanted to collect money from Pa, on account of his build, mostly, so we went back to the boat. Pa put Red Peril bed for two days. It took him all that get over his fright at the yeller circle. even made us go without butter for a thinking Red Peril might know the smell it. He was such an intelligent, thinking ani mal, a man couldn’t tell nothing about him. BUTnextmomlncmesharmwmen bo and arrests Pa with a warrant and take him afore a justice of the peace. That old Oscar Snipe. He'd heard all about the race, and I think he was feeling pleasant with Pa, because right off they commenced talking breeds. It would have gone off good only Pa'd been having a round with the sheriff. They come in arm in arm, singing a Hallelujah meeting song; but Pa was polite, and when Oscar says, “What's this?” he only says, “Well, well.” <