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Updated: June 5, 2025
Just as they were struggling with the bag, to get it in again, they were overtaken by a droll-looking equipage. It was a long house on wheels, and instantly reminded Dotty of Noah's ark. "O, a house a-ridin'! a house a-ridin'!" exclaimed Flyaway, gazing after it with the greatest astonishment. Dotty thought the world was going topsy-turvy.
So, with many allusions to the time he fit at Lundy's Lane, and some indignant remarks about the pack of thieves that driv him off, and a passing tribute to Miss Martha Hawkins, and sundry other digressions, in which he had to be checked, the old man told how he'd drunk whisky at Welch's store that night, and how Welch's whisky was all-fired mean, and how it allers went straight to his head, and how he had got a leetle too much, and how he had felt kyinder gin aout by the time he got to the blacksmith's shop, and how he had laid down to rest, and how as he s'posed the boys had crated him, and how he thought it war all-fired mean to crate a old soldier what fit the Britishers, and lost his leg by one of the blamed critters a-punchin' his bagonet through it; and how when he woke up it was all-fired cold, and how he rolled off the crate and went on towurds home, and how when he got up to the top of Means's hill he met Pete Jones and Bill Jones, and a slim sort of a young man, a-ridin'; and how he know'd the Joneses by ther hosses, and some more things of that kyind about 'em; but he didn't know the slim young man, tho' he tho't he might tell him ef he seed him agin kase he was dressed up so slick and town-like.
"I don't suppose you ever did, sir, nor no man else. That's young Velocipede, and that's Chiffney a-ridin' him. You'll see that horse walk over for everything next year." But now the horses came down, five of them abreast; at a walk, amid a dead silence from the crowd, three of them, steady old stagers, but two jumping and pulling.
"I'm just a-ridin'. I wa'n't goin' no place." "Well, you took the wrong trail to get there. You fan it back to the folks." "Aunt Jane is my boss!" said Jimmy defiantly. "'Course she is," agreed Cheyenne. "You and me, we're just pardners. But, honest, Jimmy, you can't do no good, doggin' along after me. Your Aunt Jane would sure stretch my hide if she knowed I let you come along."
Now ther's Tom-Jeff, braggin' how he'll be the one to kill the pappy o' Nan's chillern: he's a-ridin' a mighty shore-footed hawss, but hit do look like he'd be skeered the Lord might take him at his word and make that hawss stumble. Hit do, for a fact!"
He got a notion that he was goin' to be robbed, an' used to carry 'round with him a cur'ous old box that folks said held his bonds an' money an' the old family jewels that had been brought over from England a hunderd years afore. If he went a-ridin' an' he was the splendidest horseman ever seen in these parts he'd have the thing on the saddle afore him.
"Mighty queer what has become of Hank," one of them said. "But I don't reckon there's any use looking any farther. You don't figure he's aiming to throw us down do you, Buck?" "Nope. He'll stick, Hank will. But it sure looks darned strange. Here's him a-ridin' along with us, and suddenly he's missin'. We hear a yell, and go back to look for him.
"Plenty folks b'lieved in charms, but I didn' take no stock in such truck. But I don't lak for de moon to shine on me when I's a-sleepin'. "De young Niggers is headed straight for hell. All dey think' bout is drinkin' hard likker, goin' to dance halls, an' a-ridin' in a old rattle trap car. It beats all how dey brags an' wastes things. Dey aint one whit happier dan folks was in my day.
"Come back and tell me?" whispered Sally. "Lord-a-massy, yes, child! jest as soon's I know myself trewly! but I shan't know nothin' more till sundown, I expect. Desire Trowbridge is a-ridin' post; he'll come through 'bout that time with news." Long did not come back for several hours, some time after sundown, when he found Sally in the shed, waiting for him. She saw the news in his face.
Last night while I sat at home by the fire a smokin' of my pipe, and Nancy a-settin' there a-nittin' a pair of socks for a preacher, I looks up and I says, 'there's goin' to be trouble in this community before many changes of the moon, I says, and I want at all surprised to-day when the Major here come a-ridin' in with his news.
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