Читать книгу On a Donkey's Hurricane Deck - R. Pitcher Woodward - Страница 6

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I sow all sorts of seeds, and get no great harvest from any of them. I'm cursed with susceptibility in every direction, and effective faculty in none.

—Mill on the Floss.

A shower of paper flakes fell upon the amazed citizens of Yonkers like an unseasonable snow-storm, and every flake contained the announcement:

TO=NIGHT!

TO=NIGHT!

TO=NIGHT!

G—— HOUSE DINING=HALL

Only chance to hear

The Greatest of Modern Travelers

PYTHAGORAS POD

Who left New York without a dollar, to eat his way to San Francisco, within one year,

WILL RELATE 100 HAIR=BREADTH ESCAPES

Lassoing elephants in India; hunting chamois with sling-shots in the Alps; perils of an ostrich ride through the great African desert; and a kangaroo hop across Australia—THE BIGGEST HOP ON RECORD.

Gleanings from the Press.

"His stories will make a hyena laugh."—New York Bombast.

"Pye Pod is nothing more than a cake of sugar boiled down from the syrup of Lawrence Stearne, Dean Swift, Cervantes, Artemus Ward, and Josh Billings."—Chicago Tornado.

EVERY MAN AND WOMAN

who has Thirty cents to throw away, should put one in a Yonkers Bank and Twenty-nine in the pocket of the donkey traveler.

TICKETS, $0.29.

TICKETS, TWENTY=NINE CENTS

YONKERS APPEAL POWER PRINT

Even Macaroni lent a hoof, and was led by a boy through the streets, bearing a pasteboard sandwich which reached from ears to tail. The residents of Mistletoe Avenue gazed at the ridiculous spectacle, indignantly at first; but on the return trip they crowded in open door-ways and regarded the procession of beast and tagging boys, as much as to say, "We must go and hear the donkey lecture."

Macaroni had quite recovered; his exercise did him good. My lecture promised to be a huge success. The Tuesday Morning Squib and the Evening Sunrise contained alluring advertisements of the event sure to puncture an epoch in my life.

When the hour arrived, the populace, I was secretly informed, with twenty-nine cents in one hand and their lives in the other crowded about the hotel and called loudly for admittance.

My hands trembled, my hair throbbed, and my heart leaped in the ecstacy that comes with one's first great triumph, while I stood in the butler's pantry waiting for a friend to introduce me—to bid me enter the stage—the first stage of lunacy. When I issued forth, I was so excited I could not distinguish the audience from so many chairs. Having agreed to divide the receipts with my host for the use of his house, my visions of wealth got confused with my words, and I talked for an hour with all the eloquence and enthusiasm I could muster,—though I should have said less to a smaller house,—and with a sore throat retired to the refreshment room, followed by my press agent from Brooklyn. The "Doctor" handed me just twenty-nine cents. My audience had consisted of three persons: the landlord, the head-waiter, and the Dago printer whom I owed three dollars.

Reverses are like children's diseases. If they come too late in life, they go hard with us; and if too early, they may visit us again.

I was not totally bankrupt. Not willing to begin a "three ball" business at the very outset, I resolved to rise at dawn and sell enough chromos to that unappreciative community to pay my bills, if I had to sell them at cost. I set to work. By one o'clock I had visited every shop, store and Chinese laundry, and was talking hoarsely to a corner grocer who, seated on a keg of mackerel, sampling limburger cheese, grinned with satisfaction at his fortified position and swore like a skipper. I offered a picture for fifteen cents, but the reduction in price did not disturb his physical equilibrium.

"I vant not a peakture at any price," he affirmed.

"I lack fifteen cents of the amount of my hotel bill," I urged; "I am in dire straits."

His reply was weak, but the cheese was strong enough to help him out. My mental magazine had but a single charge left, and I fired it. "Isn't it worth fifteen cents to know a fool when you see one?"

"Ye-e-es, I dink it ess," answered Sweitzer Edam, "and eef you vill write it on the peakture I'll buy it." I made the sale.

Then after calling on the Mayor, who received me cordially, swapped autographs, and asked to see my partner, I saddled my animal and led him to the hotel for my traps.

"You aren't going before dinner?" the proprietor asked; "it's ready now."

"I'm flat broke—can't afford to eat," I returned sadly.

"Then come in and have a meal on me," said he. "A man who has worked as you have to square with his landlord shan't leave my hotel hungry." I yielded.

My trip to Tarrytown was accomplished on my own legs. Macaroni refused to budge unless somebody led him. The whole town turned out to see us; it was an event for the hotel. That evening I was asked to McCarty's Show, at the Theatre, paying thirty-five cents admission; I learned that the "Dutch treat" was in vogue when too late for my pride to let me decline the invitation. Next day, at noon, I set out for Sing Sing, now called Ossining, about seven miles away.

My steed, that was really not half a steed, seemed to be gradually recovering from the doubt that an endless journey had been mapped out for him, and kept me watching and prodding him constantly. On one occasion he drove through a gap in a fence; on another, he scraped through a hedge and relieved himself of my Winchester, coat and saddle-bags, for which he immediately expressed regret. At length, he balked; and I sat down by the road-side a half hour before he showed readiness to go.

While there meditating upon my trials, a pedestrian stopped and listened to my sixteen complaints. He seemed much amused, and suggested that if I would hang a penny before the donkey's nose he might follow the cent. A practical idea at once came to mind, and when, soon afterward, we reached a farm house, I put my idea to the test. I purchased some apples, and suspended one from a bough secured to the saddle and reaching over the donkey's head. The scheme worked admirably. Mac pursued the bobbing, swinging fruit at such a speed that he was nearly winded when we reached town, having manipulated his short legs to the velocity of two and one-third miles an hour.

We reached town shortly after five. The village is nicely situated high on the banks of the Hudson, and some of its residents have a beautiful view of the river, while others see nothing more picturesque than a stone wall. Sing Sing, to use the more familiar name, is the seat of an extensive prison, patronized by sojourners from all parts of the world and heavily endowed, being backed by the wealth of the State.

A local organization, the Sing Sing Steamer Company, invited me to its monthly dinner that evening, and, to my surprise and gratitude, purchased with a sealed envelope one of "our" pictures for the club rooms. I don't think it a good custom to buy a pig in a poke, but this time the pig was fat and healthy, and I found myself several dollars richer.

Next morning I bought a revolver, for, as I had to employ the larger part of the day in making sales and working my wits in a multitude of ways to keep my ship from stranding and the crew from starving, I was often compelled to travel long into the night and required some more handy weapon than a rifle for defence against pirates.

The newspapers generally heralded my coming, often greatly magnifying my successes, and I felt that the hard times, which the country at large was suffering, made such a thing as a hold-up not only possible but imminent any night.

Having received an invitation to visit the State Prison, I set out in the forenoon to find it, and a policeman (a very proper person, by the way), guided me to that famous hostelry. Macaroni also was invited, but the affrighted animal declined to enter the prison gates. Whether he thought he saw a drove of zebras, or was repelled by a guilty conscience, I know not, but, falling back in a sitting posture, he threw his ears forward and brayed loudly.

On entering the office, the secretary rose from his chair and seized me. "Professor," he said, "you are my prisoner for an hour; come this way and I will present you to the warden."

We left the room and walked over to that official's desk.

"Mr. Warden," said the secretary, "Allow me to introduce Professor Pythagoras Pod, the illustrious donkey-traveler, who is eating his way across the continent."

"Show the gentleman to the dining-room, and give him a plate of soup," said the warden hospitably; then, squeezing my fingers, he waived me to the chief keeper of the prison. The warden noted my hesitancy in leaving, and asked if there was anything in particular he could do for me.

"Will you allow me to sit in the electric chair?" I asked.

"Ye-e-es," he replied politely, but apparently startled, "although I consider you are already having capital punishment for your asinine undertaking;" and turning to the keeper, he said, "Give him fifty thousand volts; nothing less will phase a man of his nerve." I thanked him.

With faltering step I entered the solemncholy chamber. A colored prisoner was to follow me a day later. Little he knew that he would sit in the same chair Pod sat in the previous day. The keeper said everything was in readiness for turning on the current that has the power to drift a soul from this world to another in the twinkling of an eye. The battery had been thoroughly tested,—and detested, too. In less than thirty seconds from the time an ordinary prisoner enters a door of this world he enters the door of another; but, Pod, being a man of extraordinary nerve, walked out the door he entered. When I climbed into that terrible chair, I held my breath. The keeper said it required only a certain number of volts to kill a man; that fifty thousand, such as the warden had suggested for my pleasure, would not so much as singe a hair of my head. If I survived the first shock, I would have something to boast; as it would be abusing a confidence to describe the sensations of electrocution, I must not do so.

On returning to the office the warden congratulated me, and said I had earned my freedom. He even presented me a plaster of Paris ornament,—made by a prisoner who had never seen Paris,—and a package of prison-made tobacco, which I might chew, or eschew, as I liked. While I appreciated these gifts, how much more I should have valued a battery of electrical currents to administer to my donkey.

Crowds assembled to view our exit from town at two o'clock. We reached Croton, some six miles beyond, about dusk. As we approached the bridge crossing of the Croton River, I saw a duck and thought I would test my marksmanship with a revolver. My drowsy steed had nearly reached the center of the bridge when I banged at the innocent hell-diver. A compound disaster followed the shot as the frightened jackass shied to the left and dashed through the iron frame-work, tail over ears into the river, scraping me out of the saddle, but dropping me, fortunately, on the bridge. I managed, however, to get the duck; the donk got the ducking. It was a marvel that he didn't drown; from the way he brayed, I judged he was of the same opinion.

Long after dark we arrived in Peekskill. Throughout the day the weather was threatening, and I tramped the last three miles in the rain. I had donned my mackintosh and slung my overcoat across the saddle, and was pacing ahead of Mac, with reins in hand, coaxing the stubborn beast on, when suddenly he jumped. I turned just in time to discover in the darkness two men, one of whom was suspiciously near to the donkey. I told them civilly to walk ahead, as they excited my animal.

"That's none of our business," one of them remarked; "we'll walk where we d—d please."

"Not this time," I said, as I got the drop on them with my new shooting-iron; and I marched the ruffians into town. The sneaks probably wanted my overcoat. Before we were fairly in town I dismissed them, and advised them thereafter to cultivate civility toward travelers.

It was Friday night. I called upon the Mayor, and engaged the Town Hall for a lecture, resolved to try my luck again in that line. Alas! my second reverse! This time it was a too impromptu affair.

Sunday I rested, but Monday, when everything augured bright for the week, I was shocked to find Macaroni ill. At once I summoned a doctor, a dentist, and a veterinary surgeon for a consultation, and breathlessly awaited the verdict.

"Your jackass has a complication of diseases," said the vet; "among them influenza, bots, and hives."

"He has the measles," pronounced the doctor.

"He is teething," insisted the dentist.

This was too much; with a troubled brow and an empty stomach I went to breakfast, and left the doctors to fight it out.