Little drops of water,
Little grains of dirt,
Make the roads so muddy,
Donk' won't take a spurt.
To concoct such a dose, takes six parts inspiration, three parts inherited talent, two parts research, nine parts study, one-half part imagination, seven parts noun, three parts verb, three parts adjective, two parts preposition, two parts article, one part adverb; mix with a hundred carloads of clay and a fair-sized water-spout, and let stand two days in a cold valley. Take application hot. Say your prayers before and afterwards and swear as little as possible. If you pull through thank the devil -- he was with you all the while.
I never in all my life saw such roads. The word "turnpike" must mean turn over with a pike and mix frequently. It is not necessary to state I walked from Poughkeepsie to Fishkill Landing, over the Highlands. Maccaroni crawled. He kept me constantly in fear that he would lie down and roll; and finally did not disappoint me. It was not in a puddle, but in its next door neighbor, mud. I have heard that donkeys liked dust, and that a roll would answer them better than a measure of oats to carry them an extra five miles. Before leaving Peekskill Dr. Hook said Mack had symptoms of mud fever, although the tendency lay toward phlebitis, farcy and poll-evil. I might expect epizootic to set in any day. A fever of revenge was gathering in within me. If that liar Flannigan, or his confederate, Dr. More, were present I would riddle them with my Winchester.
To urge Mack to Newburg in one day necessitated an early start. We left at daybreak and reached the Fishkill ferry at 8:30 p. m., covering the twenty miles in fifteen hours, or traveling at the rate of one and one-third miles an hour. The one-third mile was attained by the donkey's motor power, the one mile by mine. I pushed and pulled him. The Highland roads were rough and strong wherever the mud had dried up. Steep and rocky summits stood out bold and barren, save where occasional clumps of young cedars were gathering among the denuded trees. Several miles beyond visible habitation I came to a small square building, through whose open window I heard a chime of young voices singing: "The-dog-caught-the-pig-by-the-yer." I knew it was a schoolhouse. Whenever I see a school I am prompted to go in and study.
While I knocked at the door, Mack, unbidden, stuck his head in at the window, causing within a deafening disturbance, followed by a painful silence. I waited some time for my repeated knocks to be answered, but in vain. So I opened the door. The room was deserted; the door in the opposite end was open. I walked across and looked out, just in time to discover the professor and a dozen young ones hurrying up the mountains through the woods. I yelled to them, but they ran the faster. Wonder what they thought they saw?
Moving on, we again penetrated the mountain wilderness. Fearing lest I might run across a mountain lion or jack-rabbit, I loaded my six-shooter and kept on the lookout. And I had not gone two miles before my vigilance was rewarded. With horror and dismay I saw an upland goose, a genuine upland goose! I never saw but one before, and I never could forget it. That was in the London Zoo. The botanical name of upland goose is "bernicle magellanica." I should have said astronomical name, because geese migrate at night, flying among the stars. An authority once told Pod that the sexes so nearly resembled each other that it is almost impossible to distinguish them, but in this case I knew the fellow was not a gander, for he wore a coat of mail. Must of. As soon as the excited Pod espied the rascal he began banging at it with No. 32s. Feathers flew, but the goose didn't. He just clung to the rock of misfortune until he hadn't a feather on, except wrist band, leggings and chin whiskers, then ran away to get up sufficient circulation to keep warm. Now, as the upland goose is a native of the Falkland Islands and the adjacent parts of South America, its appearance in the Highlands of the Hudson cannot be accounted for unless it came over in some recent hurricane. One has been raging at sea several days.
Before long my donkey began to slow up. I stopped at the first farmhouse, procured an apple, made a hole in it and ran a stout cord tied to a two-inch stick and hung it on a bough over his head, as on a former occasion. Of course, he increased his speed, but a mile beyond I stopped to talk with a woman driving and make a sale. Suddenly I heard the sound of gaggling. Turning, I beheld my donkey in convulsions. He had swallowed the apple and had the string and stick down his windpipe. I pulled out the obstructions, and after allowing him to catch his breath, proceeded on my journey.
Soon after, as I passed Cold Spring, I was startled at the booming of cannon at West Point on the opposite shore. I never expected an honor of this kind. I was so overwhelmed by the salute in my honor that I forgot to count, but presumed there were twenty-one guns. Later in the day I learned that the cadets had been shooting at the mark.
Two hours later, another incident delayed me a half hour. The air was mild, and my long and weary tramp had heated me, so I doffed my overcoat and slung it over the saddle with my mackintosh. My steed had to be led, but I watched the coats frequently. Finally other things absorbed my thoughts, and when I returned to the coats they were gone. I received the worst fright since leaving New York,. Immediately retracing our steps, we penetrated the darkness and a half-mile back I found the coats in the mud.
The ferryboat at Fishkill crossed to Newburg at 8:30, and I urged Mack aboard just in time not to leave his hind legs in Fishkill. Had I not ungraciously kicked him with my number twelves he would have backed and taken a bath in the Hudson. What a relief to step on the Newburg shore! What happiness to gaze upon roast turkey and pumpkin pie in the Howland House cafe window. My good friend, Bauer, the proprietor, soon made my lame bones easy with the comforts he provided, and even sent Mack a plate of oatmeal griddle cakes that would have made a peripatetic aristocrat bilious. Next day, when about to depart, a delegation from the Tenth Separate company called and induced me, for a big consideration, to referee a game of basket ball at the armory that evening.
I accepted. Mack didn't accept, and had to be coerced. What I knew about basket ball wouldn't tax a baby's memory; but that didn't matter. It was an event for the company, for Pod and for the jack-ass. The rain presumably drowned a number of the audience who were absent, but Pod and his better half landed others. The Mayor and suite strained the balcony. Regrets were read from the President, Queen Vic and Emperor Willie. Then the game opened, and then Maccaroni's mouth. He took a bawl and raised the glass roof. A player got the ball and split the floor. I have seen goose piles, but never one equal to that. A stack of humanity seven feet high squeezed the wind out of the pigskin until it required the services of a new woman with a tire pump.
"What is your decision?" cried the company captain.
"I call it foul," said Pod, and the spectators clapped and shouted in approval of the wise and scrupulous verdict.
Basket ball is easy for one to understand, although I neither knew how many points to give each side, nor which side won. As the company's opponents were the Y.M.C.A. boys, I knew they wouldn't cheat.
"What do you call the game?" inquired Pod, the referee.
"Four to two," said the Y.M.C.A. captain.
"Right you are," said Pod.
In place of poles for the goals, there are large net baskets, nine feet from the floor, in which the ball must be placed by hand. In some cases it requires considerable straining. Therefore, basket ball is handball, and handball differs from football in that in handball the pigskin is kicked through the game, windows, etc., and in football it is only handled. Both games are misnamed.
After the ball was over, and two eyes, a nose, and a pair of lips were sewed up, the company surgeon and officers invited Mack and me to lunch. It was late when I retired. Next morning I found my donkey's maladies increasing, and already triple in number what they were in Peekskill. But I had arrived just two days too late to secure a better jackass, and could do no better than move on to Poughkeepsie. I wonder if everybody at the armory was vaccinated? Suppose an epidemic of donkey diseases should crop out in Newburg? What if Mack and I should be quarantined? Three hours after leaving Newburg I found a large horseshoe. My biggest stroke of luck thus far. This expression is irony.
The Poughkeepsie people are not quite as slow as the town would indicate. They drop three letters in naming the place, and spell it Pokeepsie. There are just four good points I like about the city, and that is one of them. The other three are Mayor Arnold, the girls of Vassar, and the reporter who engaged Maccaroni and me for a princely sum to appear in an amateur play. This was a new stage in our travels. We've had so many I don't know what number to call it. The boy who led the jackass about the streets while I hustled for a living bore a standard inscribed: "Will appear to-night in 'Hogan's Alley.' at Kirchner's Hall." Everybody believed the report except Mack. At 5 o'clock he was to be at the hall -- outside, not inside. Oh, no! There were two staircases to climb, and he knew nothing about the place -- hadn't even heard of it. We pulled on the halter and we pushed him. We put oats ahead of him and three barking dogs behind him. But Mack never budged. He braced his feet against the curb and was helped to turn a headspring. Two policemen had joined hands in a three handed game and turned over a jack. Delays are dangerous. Finally, four men assisted and we practically carried the beast into the theater and on to the stage. Here we fed and watered him and practiced with him. It was necessary he should go out from behind the scenery at a moment's notice.
By 6 o'clock he was broken in, and before the show had broken up that night the donkey had broken out. You see, when the Yellow Kid came out leading the Salvation Army, tooting horns and banging bass drums, Mack took it to be a train of cars, of which he is in constant terror, and backed through the curtain off the stage into a dozen laps. Luckily the animal didn't kick; but the audience did.
"Such doings," as a paper stated next day, "were never known before in this town in the annals of donkeys -- four-legged or two-legged , either."
When the show again proceeded, and the Yellow Kid stopped turning white, and the fifer blew, people flocked in more than ever, and donkey stock ran higher than the previous excitement had run. But the real circus was afterward, when we slid Mack down the banisters. It was his first ride, and the rate of speed attained was so far in advance of any he had ever known or heard of, except when the beer wagon struck him, that he laughed aloud all the way down. They heard him down at the Nelson House and thought some drummer had cracked a joke. But it was a fortunate evening for me. I heard there was a better donkey in the neighborhood, and the next day I made a trade. Maccaroni's maladies had been cropping out daily and were now so complicated they defied the intelligence and wisdom of a magician. I traded with a veterinary surgeon. This is the only way I could get even with the vet who gave me the defective examination papers for Maccaroni the first.
I have mentioned the Vassar girls. I doubt whether they will ever mention me. I sent them word secretly that Pye Pod would happily condescend to polish their shoes at 50 cents a pair. Allowing two minutes for each pair and half a minute for making change, I could blacken twenty-four pair an hour, or forty-eight pairs in two hours. The proposition was accepted. The time was fixed at 6:30 a. m., while the teachers were dreaming about the binomial formula, blue light and turnips. Pod was hit with an alarm clock at 4:30, and practiced on the stove legs an hour to get shoe polishing down to a science. Then he took the trolley, and made the hedge fence, and stole into the stately gate, and took the time of the huge clock overhead. Then he took his own time. He had four minutes to spare, and knew Vassar girls not to be slow.
Placing his chair at the right marble staircase entering the college, he politely raised his plug hat, called "Next!" out of force of habit, and number one mounted the throne. Blacking flew like mud did when the beer wagon hit Mack, and a brush flew out of Pod's hand through a window, letting in more light, for it was barely dawn. "Next!" and a pretty girl had taken a shine to Pod and paid him 50 cents in copper. Number two being in a senior class, reassured Pod was paying an election wager and paid him in silver. No. 48 had to go with one foot blacked and one otherwise; blacking gave out. Wasn't Pod's fault. No. 13 kicked over the polish and spoiled No. 14's hands.
Suddenly a professor was heard reading Volapuk, so Pod grabbed the chair and ran. So did the girls. That odd shoe on No. 48 did just as good service as any on the forty-seven. Pod beat the cars and reached Nelson House in time for breakfast. I wonder what the president said when he discovered so many neat-looking feet? Wonder if Pod had left his address if he would have employed him by the ear. Shouldn't wonder.