United States or Senegal ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Richards, while he had his hands full with these, was not neglecting the wagons, either, though he was making less of a ceremony of it. A teamster was shot and dragged from his wagon-seat, a lighted bundle of inflammables tossed into the wagon, and pistols were fired around the mules' heads to start them running.
I landed on my head in a ditch, while the wagon-seat landed "right side up with care" on the road side, with Rollin sitting squarely in it as if unmolested. The mishap caused no more damage to horses and wagon than a slight break of the wagon pole and a bad scare for the horses. But it was a sight to behold! The yelks streaming down through the cracks of the wagon box.
When these are filled and surrounded by a standing wall of men and women, three or four deep, and when the orators of the day ascend over the wheels to the long wagon-seat, you have a scene and an assembly the like of which you find nowhere else in Christendom. No Saxon parliament of the Heptarchy could "hold a candle to it."
It became evident that we should reach Baddeck soon enough, if we could cling to that wagon-seat. The morning sun was hot. The way was so uninteresting that we almost wished ourselves back in Nova Scotia. The sandy road was bordered with discouraged evergreens, through which we had glimpses of sand-drifted farms. If Baddeck was to be like this, we had come on a fool's errand.
He stared and snorted and trembled. When he felt his mate spring forward in the traces he went with him, ready to do anything in order to get away from that heaving, swaying thing which was coming toward them. "Whoa, ye pesky fools! Whoa, dod rot ye!" Uncle Enoch, wakened from the half doze which he had been taking on the wagon-seat, now began to saw on the lines.
There were some savage, low hills, and the Judique Mountain showed itself as we got away from the town. In this first stage, the heat of the sun, the monotony of the road, and the scarcity of sleep during the past thirty-six hours were all unfavorable to our keeping on the wagon-seat. We nodded separately, we nodded and reeled in unison. But asleep or awake, the driver drove like a son of Jehu.
But every time she put her chubby arms around a slab, it broke in two; so her brothers told her to stop. Then she climbed to the wagon-seat and drove the horses beside the furrows, and, later, went to the farm-yard with a load. The smoke-house was being built beside the corn-cribs.
The owl screeched, and Rita sprang screaming from the wagon-seat to the ground. Sukey's turn came next, and although Rita begged her not to enter the gypsy's den, our lady of the dimples climbed over the front wheel, eager for forbidden fruit. The hideous witch, the owl, and the snake for a moment frightened Sukey; but she, true daughter of Eve, hungered for apples, and was determined to eat.
Nelson was not looking, he slipped into the woodshed, got the axe, and adroitly hid it under the wagon-seat. He told himself that in case of trouble he would at least have some weapon with which to defend the missionary's life, and fight for his own.
They had to stop two hours for dinner and to "breathe 'em," as the man said. The four picnicked in the sun, with the furniture wagon to break the keen wind, passing around hot coffee in a can, from hand to hand, the driver having built a campfire to heat the coffee beside the country road. But after that stop for they were well into the country now there was no keeping Sister on the wagon-seat.
Word Of The Day