Title
Typescript draft of The Studhorse Man, page 2
Description
Typescript from the third draft of Robert Kroetsch's 1969 novel The Studhorse Man.
Creator
Source
Archives and Special Collections
Publisher
Calgary: University of Calgary
Date
Contributor
Robertson, James
Smith, Amanda
Relation
Kroetsch, Robert. The Studhorse Man.
Language
English
Type
Text
Identifier
MsC. 27.10.3
UUID
c3d698e4-8085-402f-a632-341d4ee56b1c
Text
[Typescript]
I commenced to write that a simple biography would be more appropriate: scholars in the future will want every wisp of detail concerning the man who reared that famous foundation sire, the Lepage stallion.
The mere truth will suffice, I discovered, and discovering this, I, ever so humbly, elected to become his Plutarch and his Boswell. Granted, I spent hardly two dozen afternoons with Hazard Lepage: but I got the story from others as well. I was curious; I went out of my way to hear of incidents, to examine evidence and motives. Martha, after all, is my cousin; and she and Hazard were engaged for thirteen years. I sat in country beer parlors listening to the chitchat and gossip of idle men. I walked, when free to do so, the routes that were Hazard's routes. I plundered various newspaper files. Understand then, I entreat you, that this is not my story.
Hazard had to get hold of a mare. He was desperate. In an area centered on a string of seven towns he was the only remaining studhorse man, yet in the previous season he had traveled the hundreds of miles of dirt roads in a two-wheeled cart, pulled by his old gelding, leading his beautiful blue beast of a virgin stallion--and he found not one farmer with a mare that wanted covering.
2.
I commenced to write that a simple biography would be more appropriate: scholars in the future will want every wisp of detail concerning the man who reared that famous foundation sire, the Lepage stallion.
The mere truth will suffice, I discovered, and discovering this, I, ever so humbly, elected to become his Plutarch and his Boswell. Granted, I spent hardly two dozen afternoons with Hazard Lepage: but I got the story from others as well. I was curious; I went out of my way to hear of incidents, to examine evidence and motives. Martha, after all, is my cousin; and she and Hazard were engaged for thirteen years. I sat in country beer parlors listening to the chitchat and gossip of idle men. I walked, when free to do so, the routes that were Hazard's routes. I plundered various newspaper files. Understand then, I entreat you, that this is not my story.
Hazard had to get hold of a mare. He was desperate. In an area centered on a string of seven towns he was the only remaining studhorse man, yet in the previous season he had traveled the hundreds of miles of dirt roads in a two-wheeled cart, pulled by his old gelding, leading his beautiful blue beast of a virgin stallion--and he found not one farmer with a mare that wanted covering.
[Holographic annotations]
/// [marks indicate the beginning of the published novel]
^had
/// [marks indicate the beginning of the published novel]
^had
Original Format
Typescript draft with holographic annotations