Читать книгу On a Donkey's Hurricane Deck - R. Pitcher Woodward - Страница 12

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"We tramped tired and footsore into the village."

The ball was the most brilliant function it had been my pleasure to attend since the days of my freedom. Caesar! what charming girls! Were they really charming! or was it because I had been a recluse so long that most anybody wearing dresses fascinated my starved optics? Before advancing a rod into the hall, I received a proposal; within an hour I had a dozen. The dance, the supper, the defective lights, and the kisses in the dark, the midnight alarm, and the New Year's bells, all fulfilled their offices delightfully in turn—all, except the leave-taking of the old year, which groaned over the effects of bad salad, and gave up the ghost.

I devoted the afternoon to a delightful nap; I was worn out. Saturday I called upon the genial Mayor, who paid me liberally for a photo and subscribed to my donkey book. Sunday I set out with Mac for Rome.

I was told all the roads were in bad condition, and was advised to take the tow-path of the Erie Canal. After two hours of tramping and groping in the darkness, we came to a suburban street; soon after I was directed to a tavern, and quartered myself for the night.

A number of commercial men had prophesied I would not make my expenses in Rome, but I did. It was an all-day job, however, and another night was fairly upon me before I started for Oneida, sixteen miles away.

We had not gone far, when we came to an old-fashioned toll-gate, where I expected to be made to contribute to the county's good-road fund. I felt loath to do so, for nowhere else on my journey had we found the highway in such a disreputable condition. I told Mac to keep his mouth shut, and we stealthily walked through the gate, hoping not to be observed; but no sooner done than the keeper issued from his shanty and welcomed me back. He wished to talk with me, he said. His boy had preceded me from town and given his father glowing accounts of the donkey traveler. So interested were the toll-gate keeper and his family in the welfare of Pod and Mac that they not only waived the toll, but gave us a pressing invitation to remain with them over night. The generosity of that man's big, honest heart stood out in such happy contrast with the miserly county administration and my own penury that I gratified the man's desire, in a measure, and hitching Mac A'Rony, followed my host into his dwelling, where I allowed myself to share his frugal board. It was certainly such a home where either a Don Quixote or a Pythagoras Pod might feel himself a distinguished guest. The wife brewed tea, and spread the table with black bread and doubtfully wholesome cakes, while the children climbed on my knees and heard with rapture my tales of adventure.

When it was time to go the keeper, having learned from his son that I sold the pictures "to live on," begged me with tears to accept a quarter for the one I gave him, saying that he had a fair-sized garden besides the pittance he received for performing the duties of his humble office, whereas I had to depend on Providence for the keeping of myself and comrade on our long trip "round the world."

So Mac and I, thanking the good people for their kindnesses—for Mac's ever-acute appetite had not been overlooked by the thoughtful hostess—strode on in mud and darkness, slipping, spattering, and mumbling unintelligible and impolite words, and hoping against hope soon to arrive at some comfortable haven of rest.

A mile beyond we were greeted with loud applause issuing from a huge building to our left, which I took to be a girl's seminary, but which Mac insisted was a slaughter house. To be distinguished in the dark and tendered such an ovation quite tickled my vanity; but my less-conceited partner only brayed and trembled in the fear of being chased by a mad pig with its throat cut. When we had passed to a safe distance, I met a farmer in a wagon, and asked him the name of the illuminated building.

"The Rome State Insane Asylum," said the man.

At length, a dense mist gathered; then it began to sprinkle. I could scarcely distinguish Mac in the darkness. The road was tortuous, one vast river bed of mud, as untenable as quicksand. We first ran against a barbed-wire fence on one side, and a rail fence on the other, and finally, I plunged over boot-tops in a sluice, and might have drowned had I not held the reins and been pulled out by my unintentionally heroic comrade. My boots were new and didn't leak, and the mud and water remained in them.

If ever there was a moment on that overland "voyage" when I felt in prime condition to give it up, it was there and then. Still we struggled onward, and a few hundred yards ahead I discovered the faint light of a farm house, where I stopped to ask the distance to the next place we could secure shelter.

"'Bout four mile, I should jedge," said the farmer. I guessed as much, but it gave me a chance to sigh.

"Mercy! None nearer?" Just then Mac coughed, and approached.

"Nope. But wait! Be you the gentleman bound fer 'Frisco with a mule?"

"Verily so," I returned, while my partner brayed indignantly at being called a mule.

"Wall, what's it wuth to take you both in fer the night and feed ye?" the man asked, avariciously.

"Oh, about seventy-five cents."

"Come back," said he; "I just walked from the railroad station a mile and a half in the mud, and lost my overshoes, and kin sympathize with ye."

My donkey was comfortably stabled, watered and fed, and I ushered into a cozy room, where my host brought me dry garments and slippers, and gave me a hot supper. Truly, I thought, the darkest hour is just before dawn.