"Now run right back and get a tumbler for him to drink out of, and a
teaspoon to feed him with."
I started in good faith, from a mere habit of unquestioning obedience, but
with the fourth step my reason returned to me, and I returned to
Halicarnassus and--kicked him. That sounds very dreadful and horrible, and
it is, if you are thinking of a great, brutal, brogan kick, such as a
stupid farmer gives to his patient oxen; but not, if you mean only a
delicate, compact, penetrative punch with the toe of a tight-fitting
gaiter,--addressed rather to the conscience than the shins, to the
sensibilities rather than the senses. The kick masculine is coarse,
boorish, unmitigated, predicable only of Calibans. The kick feminine is
expressive, suggestive, terse, electric,--an indispensable instrument in
domestic discipline, as women will bear me witness, and not at all
incompatible with beauty, grace, and amiability. But, right or wrong,
after all this interval of rest and reflection, in full view of all the
circumstances, my only regret is that I did not tick him harder.
"Now go and fetch your own tools!" I cried, shaking off the yoke of
servitude. "I won't be your stable-boy any longer!"
Then, perforce, he gathered up the crockery, marched off in disgrace, and
came back with a molasses-hogshead, or a wash-tub, or some such overgrown
mastodon, to turn his sixpenny-worth of oats into.
Having fed our mettlesome steed, the next thing was to water him. The
Anakim remembered to have seen a pump with a trough somewhere, and they
proposed to reconnoitre while we should "wait _by_ the wagon" their
return. No, I said we would drive on to the pump, while they walked.
"You drive!" ejaculated Halicarnassus, contemptuously.
Now I do not, as a general thing, have an overweening respect for female
teamsters. There is but one woman in the world to whose hands I confide
the reins and my bones with entire equanimity; and she says, that, when
she is driving, she dreads of all things to meet a driving woman. If a man
said this, it might be set down to prejudice. I don't make any account of
Halicarnassus's assertion, that, if two women walking in the road on a
muddy day meet a carriage, they never keep together, but invariably one
runs to the right and one to the left, so that the driver cannot favor
them at all, but has to crowd between them, and drive both into the mud.
That is palpably interested false witness. He thinks it is fine fun to
push women into the mud, and frames such flimsy excuses. But as a woman's
thoughts about women, this woman's utterances are deserving of attention;
and she says that women are not to be depended upon. She is never sure
that they will not turn out on the wrong side. They are nervous; they are
timid; they are unreasoning; they are reckless. They will give a horse a
disconnected, an utterly inconsequent "cut," making him spring, to the
jeopardy of their own and others' safety. They are not concentrative, and
they are not infallibly courteous, as men are. I remember I was driving
with her once between Newburyport and Boston. It was getting late, and we
were very desirous to reach our destination before nightfall. Ahead of us
a woman and a girl were jogging along in a country-wagon. As we wished to
go much faster than they, we turned aside to pass them; but just as we
were well abreast, the woman started up her horse, and he skimmed over the
ground like a bird. We laughed, and followed well content. But after he
had gone perhaps an eighth of a mile, his speed slackened down to the
former jog-trot. Three times we attempted to pass before we really
comprehended the fact that that infamous woman was deliberately detaining
and annoying us. The third time, when we had so nearly passed them that
our horse was turning into the road again, she struck hers up so suddenly
and unexpectedly that her wheels almost grazed ours. Of course,
understanding her game, we ceased the attempt, having no taste for
horse-racing; and nearly all the way from Newburyport to Rowley, she kept
up that brigandry, jogging on and forcing us to jog on, neither going
ahead herself nor suffering us to do so,--a perfect and most provoking dog
in a manger. Her girl-associate would look behind every now and then to
take observations, and I mentally hoped that the frisky Bucephalus would
frisk his mistress out of the cart and break her ne-- arm, or at least put
her shoulder out of joint. If he did, I had fully determined in my own
mind to hasten to her assistance and shame her to death with delicate and
assiduous kindness. But fate lingered like all the rest of us. She reached
Rowley in safety, and there our roads separated. Whether she stopped
there, or drove into Ethiopian wastes beyond, I cannot say; but I have no
doubt that the milk which she carried into Newburyport to market was blue,
the butter frowy, and the potatoes exceedingly small.
Now do you mean to tell me that any man would have been guilty of such a
thing? I don't mean, would have committed such discourtesy to a woman? Of
course not; but would a man ever do it to a man? Never. He might try it
once or twice, just for fun, just to show off his horse, but he never
would have persisted in it till a joke became an insult, not to say a
possible injury.
Still, as I was about to say, when that Rowley jade interrupted me, though
I have small faith in Di-Vernonism generally, and no large faith in my own
personal prowess, I did feel myself equal to the task of holding the reins
while our Rosinante walked along an open road to a pump. I therefore
resented Halicarnassus's contemptuous tones, mounted the wagon with as
much dignity as wagons allow, sat straight as an arrow on the driver's
seat, took the reins in both hands,--as they used to tell me I must not,
when I was a little girl, because that was women's way, but I find now
that men have adopted it, so I suppose it is all right,--and proceeded to
show, like Sam Patch, that some things can be done as well as others.
Halicarnassus and the Anakim took up their position in line on the other
side of the road, hat in hand, watching.
"Go fast, and shame them," whispered Grande, from the back-seat, and the
suggestion jumped with my own mood. It was a moment of intense excitement.
To be or not to be. I jerked the lines. Pegasus did not start.
"C-l-k-l-k!" No forward movement.
"Huddup!" Still waiting for reinforcements.
"H-w-e." (Attempt at a whistle. Dead failure.)
(_Sotto voce._) "O you beast!" (_Pianissimo._) "Gee! Haw! haw! haw!" with
a terrible jerking of the reins.
A voice over the way, distinctly audible, utters the cabalistic words,
"Two forty." Another voice, as audible, asks, "Which'll you bet on?" It
was not soothing. It did seem as if the imp of the perverse had taken
possession of that terrible nag to go and make such a display at such a
moment. But as his will rose, so did mine, and as my will went up, my whip
went with it; but before it came down, Halicarnassus made shift to drone
out, "Wouldn't Flora go faster, if she was untied?"
To be sure, I had forgotten to unfasten him, and there those two men had
stood and known it all the time! I was in the wagon, so they were secure
from personal violence, but I have a vague impression of some "pet names"
flying wildly about in the air in that vicinity. Then we trundled safely
down the lane. We were to go in the direction leading away from home,--the
horse's. I don't think he perceived it at first, but as soon as he did
snuff the fact, which happened when he had gone perhaps three rods, he
quietly turned around and headed the other way, paying no more attention
to my reins or my terrific "whoas" than if I were a sleeping babe. A horse
is none of your woman's-rights men. He is Pauline. He suffers not the
woman to usurp authority over him. He never says anything nor votes
anything, but declares himself unequivocally by taking things into his own
hands, whenever he knows there is nobody but a woman behind him,--and
somehow he always does know. After Halicarnassus had turned him back and
set him going the right way, I took on a gruff, manny voice, to deceive.
Nonsense! I could almost see him snap his fingers at me. He minded my whip
no more than he did a fly,--not so much as he did some flies. Grande said
she supposed his back was all callous. I acted upon the suggestion, knelt
down in the bottom of the wagon, and leaned over the dasher to whip him on
his belly, then climbed out on the shafts and snapped about his ears; but
he stood it much better than I. Finally I found that by taking the small
end of the wooden whip-handle, and sticking it into him, I could elicit a
faint flash of light; so I did it with assiduity, but the moderate trot
which even that produced was not enough to accomplish my design, which was
to outstrip the two men and make them run or beg. The opposing forces
arrived at the pump about the same time.
Halicarnassus took the handle, and gave about five jerks. Then the Anakim
took it and gave five more. Then they both stopped and wiped their faces.
"What do you suppose this pump was put here for?" asked Halicarnassus.
"A mile-stone, probably," replied the Anakim.
Then they resumed their Herculean efforts till the water came, and then
they got into the wagon, and we drove into the blackberries once more,
where we arrived just in season to escape a thunder--shower, and pile
merrily into one of several coaches waiting to convey passengers in
various directions as soon as the train should come.
It is very selfish, but fine fun, to have secured your own chosen seat and
bestowed your own luggage, and have nothing to do but witness the
anxieties and efforts of other people. This exquisite pleasure we enjoyed
for fifteen minutes, edified at the last by hearing one of our coachmen
call out, "Here, Rosey, this way!"--whereupon a manly voice, in the
darkness, near us, soliloquized, "Respectful way of addressing a judge of
the Supreme Court!" and, being interrogated, the voice informed us that
"Rosey" was the vulgate for Judge Rosecranz; whereupon Halicarnassus
glossed over the rampant democracy by remarking that the diminutive was
probably a term of endearment rather than familiarity; whereupon the manly
voice--if I might say it--snickered audibly in the darkness, and we all
relapsed into silence. But could anything be more characteristic of a
certain phase of the manners of our great and glorious country? Where are
the Trollopes? Where is Dickens? Where is Basil Hall?
It is but a dreary ride to Lake George on a dark and rainy evening, unless
people like riding for its own sake, as I do. If there are suns and stars
and skies, very well. If there are not, very well too: I like to ride all
the same. I like everything in this world but Saratoga. Once or twice our
monotony was broken up by short halts before country-inns. At one an
excitement was going on. "Had a casualty here this afternoon," remarked a
fresh passenger, as soon as he was fairly seated. A casualty is a windfall
to a country-village. It is really worth while to have a head broken
occasionally, for the wholesome stirring-up it gives to the heads that are
not broken. On the whole, I question whether collisions and collusions do
not cause as much good as harm. Certainly, people seem to take the most
lively satisfaction in receiving and imparting all the details concerning
them. Our passenger-friend opened his budget with as much complacence as
ever did Mr. Gladstone or Disraeli, and with a confident air of knowing
that he was going not only to enjoy a piece of good-fortune himself, but
to administer a great gratification to us. Our "casualty" turned out to be
the affair of a Catholic priest, of which our informer spoke only in dark
hints and with significant shoulder-shrugs and eyebrow-elevations, because
it was "not exactly the thing to get out, you know"; but if it wasn't to
get out, why did he let it out? and so from my dark corner I watched him
as a cat does a mouse, and the lamp-light shone full upon him, and I
understood every word and shrug, and I am going to tell it all to the
world. I translated that the holy father had been "skylarking" in a boat,
and in gay society had forgotten his vows of frugality and abstinence and
general mortification of the flesh, and had become, not very drunk, but
drunk enough to be dangerous, when he came ashore and took a horse in his
hands, and so upset his carriage, and gashed his temporal artery, and came
to grief, which is such a casualty as does not happen every day, and I
don't blame people for making the most of it. Then the moral was pointed,
and the tale adorned, and the impression deepened, solemnized, and struck
home by the fact that the very horse concerned in the "casualty" was to be
fastened behind our coach, and the whole population came out with lanterns
and umbrellas to tie him on,--all but one man, who was deaf, and stood on
the piazza, anxious and eager to know everything that had been and was
still occurring, and yet sorry to give trouble, and so compromising the
matter and making it worse, as compromises generally do, by questioning
everybody with a deprecating, fawning air.
Item. We shall all, if we live long enough, be deaf, but we need not be
meek about it. I for one am determined to walk up to people and demand
what they are saying at the point of the bayonet. Deafness, if it must be
so, but independence at any rate.
And when the fulness of time is come, we alight at Fort-William-Henry
Hotel, and all night long through the sentient woods I hear the booming of
Johnson's cannon, the rattle of Dieskau's guns, and that wild war-whoop,
more terrible than all. Again old Monro watches from his fortress-walls
the steadily approaching foe, and looks in vain for help, save to his own
brave heart. I see the light of conquest shining in his foeman's eye,
darkened by no shadow of the fate that waits his coming on a bleak
Northern hill; but, generous in the hour of victory, he shall not be less
noble in defeat,--for to generous hearts all generous hearts are friendly,
whether they stand face to face or side by side.
Over the woods and the waves, when the morning breaks, like a bridegroom
coming forth from his chamber, rejoicing as a strong man to run a race,
comes up the sun in his might and crowns himself king. All the summer day,
from morn to dewy eve, we sail over the lakes of Paradise. Blue waters and
blue sky, soft clouds, and green islands, and fair, fruitful shores,
sharp-pointed hills, long, gentle slopes and swells, and the lights and
shadows of far-stretching woods; and over all the potence of the unseen
past, the grand, historic past,--soft over all the invisible mantle which
our fathers flung at their departing,--the mystic effluence of the spirits
that trod these wilds and sailed these waters,--the courage and the
fortitude, the hope that battled against hope, the comprehensive outlook,
the sagacious purpose, the resolute will, the unhesitating self-sacrifice,
the undaunted devotion which has made this heroic ground: cast these into
your own glowing crucible, O gracious friend, and crystallize for yourself
such a gem of days as shall worthily be set forever in your crown of the
beatitudes.
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