Sporking The Coach That Never Came - Chapter 5
Because there's never enough bad writing or bad math!
5. The Old Letter
Paul opens Billy Smart's trunk and discovers there's no order to its contents. He decides to take the scrapbooks down to his room to look through. Grandma checks in to tell him that she'd looked in the old family Bible. "Billy is there all alone -- sort of out in left field. He's the only Smart in the whole list of people. ... It says, 'William Smart, born March 15, 1872, died march 23, 1930.'" No one's looked in the bible before? People in this book are strangely incurious for mystery novel characters. But that's not the real problem. The real problem is that Billy Smart, he who lived a "long, long time," died at the ripe old age of 58. Oh, sure, life expectancies may have been shorter, but I cannot believe that grandma - who is 62 or 3 - would think that someone who died at 58 lived a "long, long time." I'm not even convinced that people would have thought he lived a "long, long time" when he died. People definitely lived longer than that at the time in my family. And, yes, she was 7 or 8 when he died and might have thought he was really old, but a line about being surprised at how young he was he died would follow from that. I think Ms. Beatty just really can't do math.
Paul suggests that Billy could have been adopted. Grandma doesn't really respond to this, mostly because looking in the family bible depresses her. She then tells him that his mom will write his marriage and children in the bible someday and that Bibles were used to record such important dates as death and birth certificates before hospitals existed. Helloooo, is there an editor in the house? Apparently not. Nor a fact-checker. Hospitals effectively date to ancient Egypt. The modern hospital dates to the early 1700s. Perhaps the author meant something along the lines of "Bibles were used to record important dates before birth and death certificates became common practice." Or perhaps she thinks hospitals were invented in the 1950s. With this author, anything is possible.
Paul worries that they could find out things about Billy Smart that they don't want to know. Grandma reminds him that a lot of people came to his funeral and that he must have been likable to have a lot of friends.
Paul continues looking through the scrapbooks. In another moment of whut, Paul finds a drawing of Billy on a a horse called Fifty Cents. He laughed. That was a weird name for a horse. Yeah, because Secretariat, Seattle Slew, and Affirmed, to name a few Triple Crown Winners, are totally normal names for horses. Er, well, technically, they are normal names for racehorses. The question is, what is Paul's idea of a normal horse name and where does it come from? Clearly not horse racing. He's also never been on a horse. Fiction, perhaps? Oh, wait, he said he doesn't read western horse opera stories. Perhaps it was just a weird name, period, to Paul. But it feels like another "the west is so weird to stuck up easterner" moment. Which is an insult to both the west and easterners. And irks me.
He also finds a sketch of Buffalo Bill Cody and Annie Oakley, who he's apparently never heard of. Has there been anything so far that he is familiar with? Oh, right, arcade games. He's going to do great at that expensive private school.
He marks drawings of Indians for Jay, and finds some photographs of Billy and others in Buffalo Bill's show. Eventually he comes across pictures of Billy in a clown outfit. Had he become a circus clown? No, not that! As Paul stared at the backgrounds of the photographs, he saw that there were horses and riders in western gear. A rodeo clown! That's how Billy had ended his career.
The next morning he tells grandma what he found out. Grandma is amused by his distress at Billy's final rodeo job. That's something very special you wouldn't know about. A rodeo clown's more than just a funny man . He's a daredevil. True. Though it was something I knew about, but I was familiar with more than arcade games when I was thirteen. Grandma explains that rodeo clowns protect fallen riders and suchlike. Paul is relieved. And goes upstairs to look through the trunk some more.
When grandma brings him lunch, he complains that he hasn't even found a birth certificate.
"That's not surprising. [grandma says] In 1872, when Billy was born Yes, book, we know., babies were born at home, not in hospitals. That's why family Bibles were very important, and as reliable as today's records. They were? Then why did we move to having more official records. Oh, oh, I know! Because they weren't actually as reliable. Urgh.
Paul finishes looking through the trunk and is rather disappointed. Well, he could at least write an essay on the famous Coloradan who went from being a cowboy champion to a Wild West show performer to a rodeo clown. It wouldn't include much Colorado history, but... What, exactly, does Paul think history is? And was he expecting to find everything he'd need for his essay in the trunk? He can do a little more research and give a bigger picture than just Billy. *sigh* I suppose I do have to give Ms. Beatty full marks for making it clear that people who go to expensive private schools are no better or brighter than anyone else.
Then Paul notices a letter stuck in the trunk's leather lining. There was no postmark -- only the words "For Him," in thick black handwriting.
Paul reads the letter. It was dated July 30, 1872, in Colorado Territory. The letter is from a Frank Hart to his newborn son and apparently included some kind of present. It also has a drawing of a heart on it.
Paul wonders if the buckle was a gift from the mysterious Frank Hart. He tells grandma, who wonders if Frank Hart could have been Billy's father. A reasonable thought, under the circumstances, but there are no Harts in the infallible, completely accurate family Bible. There is, however, this: Sophronia Pettis had married a John Blake in 1879. Mrs. Weber pointed to that Bible entry. It was a messy one and appeared to have been scraped with a pen knife and then written over. On each side of the name "John Blake" was a gray streak of ink on the paper. Ah, someone was marked out of the Bible!
Mrs. Weber told Paul, "I bet the old steel pen point that wrote that entry By itself? spattered ink. Pens did that in the old days." She closed the Bible with a sigh. "Whoever he might be, Mr. Frank Hart is not listed here. *facepalm*
Grandma points out that the letter might not refer to Billy at all.
Paul, reasonably, asks why he kept the letter in his trunk then.
"I don't know, Paul. We may never know." I'm beginning to see why no one has looked into this yet. The family is entirely without curiosity.
"Maybe not, but we've got the name 'Frank Hart' to work on now. I think I'll do some detectiving." Detectiving?
Grandmother is concerned about his lack of friends, apparently because he's spent all of one day not hanging out with them. Or Ms. Beatty lost track of what had happened so far. Paul reassures her and tells her he'll invite Jay over to help. Grandma also plans to have all his friends over for a barbecue sometime.
Paul wants to show the letter to the librarian and, oddly, thinks that: Maybe Kelly's dad or the guy who fixes watches with him might have heard the name, too. Why would a jeweler or a watch repairman know about someone who lived a hundred years ago? Neither of them said anything about being into local history.
Grandma, slightly more sensibly, offers to ask her friends if they've heard of him, since some of them are descended from pioneer families.
Paul is excited about the whole thing. [he] saw now that his mother's family was tied tightly to the history of this state. Bzuh? And so was he -- he was a Weber, too. And he just now realized it! *headdesk* Yes, he wanted to learn more about Bronco Billy Smart, who could be a relative of his!
Oh, the bad writing. The horrible, horrible writing. He's been "detectiving" for a couple days now! Did Ms. Beatty forget? Where was her editor? Where was her proofreader? Why did this get published? WHY? This entry was originally posted at http://smurasaki.dreamwidth.org/86773.html.