were not tolerated in Benjamin Clark’s house. Ransom knew that he himself felt these things, his mother, sisters and brothers felt them, but for eighteen years most of what he had experienced, most of what he had learned, was survival. This home, these people, might have come from another world. What was he to them? Why was he here?
“Lucy? Mr. Clark? Please come in.” The sober, strong voice again. The girl stepped forward, moved into the room, her feet invisible beneath her skirts. Too late to run. He could only follow. She went to a chair by a fire where a man sat, right leg propped on a stool, two boards strapped against it from knee to ankle. She bent, kissed the man’s cheek.
“Thank you, my dear. Mr. Clark, I’m Noah French. Please excuse me for not rising.” He gestured. “A broken leg. Foolish accident with one of my horses.” He reached out his hand. His grip was firm without being a challenge. He held a moment, didn’t shake, released. “I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, sir.” He motioned. “Please have a seat there, by the fire. Lucy, would you be kind enough to bring us coffee?”
Ransom sat straight in his chair, looked squarely at the judge, aware of his large, leather-upholstered chair, the wall of bookshelves behind him, other shelves on the side walls, a low table between them with a vase of hyacinths, a small, crackling wood fire behind a shining brass fender beside them. Judge French had dark, graying hair, parted on the left, falling loosely across his forehead. His nose was straight, neat, flanked by high, lean cheekbones. He would be tall if he stood. Within the black trousers and white cotton shirt his body looked solid, spare but not thin. His left hand rested on the arm of his chair, his right gripped the knee of his injured leg. “Inconvenient, sir. Not part of my plan.” He smiled ruefully. “I need help, Mr. Clark. I hope you’re the man to help me. If you will.”
Once, on a Saturday, Ransom had heard that a group of gypsies had come to Geneseo with a “show,” wild animals, even an elephant. He had had five years of common school, could read and write. But his brief formal education had given him no basis for understanding where such animals as a lion, a gorilla, or a giant snake lived, what sort of place produced such creatures. He watched a magician pull rabbits out of a hat and was confounded. He saw a man tossing two red balls in the air, from hand to hand, then three, four, five, even six balls.
He had assumed that as far as a person might travel in the world, with the exception of mountains instead of the local hills, or giant bodies of water, oceans, the rest of the world was much like Livingston County, other people like the people he knew. The show had caused him more thought than his five years of school had. And the thought that came to him now, facing Judge French, was the juggler. In his mind this house, the girl, the quiet, the order, and above all the judge’s words, tumbled in his mind like the red balls. He had never thought that his future held anything more than following an ox down a furrow. He understood that the judge was offering him a job.
The door opened, the girl’s feet whispered across the floor. She bent, set a tray on the small table. “Thank you, my dear.” She nodded, touched the man’s shoulder, smiled at Ransom, left the room. He looked down. There were two cups, a plate under each, two silver spoons, a bowl of sugar, a tiny pitcher of heavy cream, two cloths. The Judge leaned forward, grunting at the discomfort to his leg, motioned to the cream and sugar. “Here’s the way it is, Mr. Clark. May not seem like it but judging other men is harder work than you might think. Been at it a long time. Got to do something to clear my mind when I’m not on the bench.” He looked toward the fire, nodded to himself. “My heart, too. Can’t listen to people’s problems day after day, year after year, decide who’s right, who’s wrong, and not get beaten down sometimes. Got to get my mind on other things, things that are not based on human troubles.” He paused, staring into the fire. “Like horses.” He turned his head, looked directly at Ransom. “I raise horses, Mr. Clark.” He took a sip of coffee, touched his lips with one of the cloths, leaned back in his chair holding the cup in his lap with both hands.
“Geneseo is a small town, Mr. Clark. Hard to live in a small town and not know something about most everyone in the vicinity. Particularly if you have been entrusted by the people of the community to judge the problems that sometimes come up. Of course I’ve had occasion to deal with your father Benjamin and several of your brothers.” He paused, glanced toward the fire, back. “I’m glad to acknowledge that you have never had call to be in my courtroom. No, I know of you from farmers, farriers, the blacksmith shop, the general store, and you are held in some regard, I’m pleased to say. Hatfield for one says you plow a straight furrow, that you’re a man to be trusted to do your best, and that your best, with animals, equipment, tools, is very good indeed. In short, from what I’ve heard, you are the sort of young man I would like to help me with my horses. If you would consider coming with me regularly, I offer you two dollars a week and found.”
Ransom gave an imperceptible nod. He was right. This man and his daughter, were from another world. He could not remember that Benjamin had ever given him to understand by word or deed that he was worthy of consideration, certainly not of affection. His father’s half-starved hounds fared better than his children. No deed, no word of Ransom’s had ever brought a smile or a nod from old Benjamin. Until he had left home, worked for other men, Ransom had never had reason to think that his existence meant any more to the world than the life of a dog. Now he hardly knew what to make of this startling appraisal, the offer of pay. For eighteen years he had lived with a man whose opinion he had rarely thought to question, had not thought his father’s brutal ways unusual. He had believed that no man would value him except for how long he could work, how much he could lift. Yet ignorant as he was of the world outside Livingston County, he knew that opportunity rarely knocked twice, nor waited over long after knocking before moving on. Whatever world the judge and his daughter lived in, it was a far better world than the one he knew.
“Yes, sir. When do I start?”
3
Ransom Clark stayed in the employ of Judge French for two years and two months. When he left for the army in the spring of 1833, he looked much as he had when the judge had brought him in. A closer look would have revealed subtle changes, however. He was cleaner, stood taller. Though he spoke rarely, he spoke well. The profanity of earlier years, which he had learned so well from Benjamin, was heard only in moments of extremity, and never when the judge or his daughter was near. The changes that Ransom had undergone were principally internal. From an ignorant country boy he had become a moderately well-read young man.
The judge had not intended to hire a laborer, a boy to muck out the stables, but a man who could learn in time to handle horses, to learn at least the rudiments of the business of horses. To understand the business of horses, or any other for that matter, the judge said, he must have some knowledge of the world, the fundamentals of developing a product, whether it was horses, crops, printing, or buggy-making, and how and why and when to buy or sell. On these things a man made or lost his money, in some cases his life. The surest way to that world was experience and reading. It was evident that the young man knew his letters. The judge thought he saw in Ransom a man in his youth, ignorant but intelligent, unskilled but strong, a young man who would rest but never quit. As it turned out, he was right.
In less than a year Ransom had learned all the judge knew about horses, and more. He could ride as though he were a part of the animal, whether in a walk, step, canter, trot, or gallop. On occasion the judge, while watching him run a fine horse, had heard cries come down the wind, curses in all probability, sounds made by a man in the awakening realization of his own power, his youth, his ability. The judge, on his feet now but using a cane, smiled. Joie de vivre, indeed.
Nor was his subtle training all physical. Eunice Luceba French, the judge’s daughter, had seen to that. Her mother was an invalid, her life’s strength having gone into the creation of ten children, of whom Eunice was the oldest. With the help of a hired girl barely older than herself she had taken over the management of their home. Like Ransom, she was twenty years old. When her responsibilities allowed, she played the piano,
