Of all conceivable journeys, this promised to be the most
tedious. I tried to tell myself it was a lovely day; I tried
to charm my foreboding spirit with tobacco; but I had a vision
ever present to me of the long, long roads, up hill and down
dale, and a pair of figures ever infinitesimally moving, foot
by foot, a yard to the minute, and, like things enchanted in a
nightmare, approaching no nearer to the goal.
--_Travels with a Donkey_--_R. L. Stevenson._
Kinderhook! I promised myself to visit the seminary, so popular in
the early '60's, and commune with the spirits of those charming
old-fashioned girls of whom mother had often spoken.
After dining at the Kinderhook Hotel, I looked it up, and found it
to be then the village academy.
The cold in my chest pained more than ever; I began to fear
pneumonia. The landlord's wife said she would be a mother to me.
Whew! If she made it as warm for her "old man" as she did for me,
I pity and congratulate him in one breath. She prepared a mustard
sitz-bath (my feet had suffered two already) powerful enough, she
declared, to force cold-blisters on my hair; she slapped mustard
leaves on my chest and back; she gave me spirits of camphor for my
lips, witch-hazel for my eyes, a pork bandage for my neck, and
liberal doses of aconite, quinine, whiskey and rum. Then she
innocently asked if I could think of any other place my cold, when
fairly on the run, would be likely to settle. Being unable to
answer, I called on a physician.
"The landlady has fixed you up admirably," said he; "I cannot
benefit you further, unless I advise you to shave off your hair
when the blisters have settled on it, to prevent the cold's
return."
I expressed my gratitude for his kind assurances, and to my
surprise, though he had an electric battery in his room, he
refused to charge me.
Without loss of time, I set out and walked two miles to the old
homestead of President Martin Van Buren, that stood back from the
road behind a group of ancient pines which sighed dolefully as I
passed.
The family living there received me kindly, and showed me the
library, parlors and hall; the old Dutch wall-paper, picturing
ancient hunts, watch-towers, and pastoral scenes, recalled a
pleasant sojourn in Holland. A Wagoner family living in the next
house asked me to dinner, and I "et" with them.
"I once knew a Van Wagoner," I said; "they were fine people."
"Our family were originally of that name," Mr. Wagoner replied.
"They dropped the Van some time ago."
Mac A'Rony said he had never heard of Vans being dropped from
Wagoners, but had often seen wagoners dropped from vans.
I next crossed the bridge spanning the creek just out of town,
where, it is said, Washington Irving conceived the story of the
headless horseman.
President Van Buren gave a ball to some statesmen, and Irving was
invited. Some wag among the guests rigged up a dummy on a horse,
and let the animal loose to give the author a scare. Wash never
lost an opportunity to make a good story, and he made use of the
idea.
Mary Ann and Lucretia Van Buren, two aged spinsters, were all who
remained of the illustrious family. I called on Mary Ann when
Lucretia was absent, and won her favor so quickly that she
presented me with a little oil painting which had been in the
family over a hundred years.
Close by stood the old brick house, formerly a fort, built with
brick brought from Holland. One brick was carved "1623." I saw the
house where General Burgoyne is said to have dined, after which I
visited Van Buren's grave.
We slept that night in North Chatham, traveling out of the direct
route to give the weak-kneed donkey as level a road as possible.
We had now been boon companions one week; it seemed a month.
Next day, we passed a rickety barn in which two horses were
engaged at a huge tread-wheel, with the dual object of threshing
corn-stalks and of keeping their ears warm. My ears were almost
frozen; whereas Mac claimed his were as warm as toast. My comrade
had the advantage over me in being able, as he expressed it, to
wiggle his ears and keep the blood circulating.
I stopped at a shanty near, and asked leave to warm myself, and
begged a newspaper to put in my breast. A poverty-stricken but
hospitable man welcomed me, and politely took my hat and stuck it
on a pitcher of milk. The humble habitation contained two rooms,
one store room, the other the living room. The latter was
furnished with a square table, now set for the mid-day meal, two
beds, a stove which was exerting every effort to boil some ancient
pork and frozen cabbage to a state of "doneness," four chairs, and
a wash-tub. The housewife was washing clothes while her "old man"
acted as cook. A dog reclined on the store-room floor watching a
saw-horse. There was not such bric-a-brac visible; a five-year-old
calendar and two or three unframed chromos hung on the walls, and
when I arose to go I discovered behind me a cracked mirror and a
comb that needed dentistry. I was surprised when the woman handed
me the desired paper; I should not have accused any of them of
being able to read.
"Wall, yer kin see haow all classes of folks lives eny haow," the
matron observed, as she screwed her face out of shape in her
anxiety to wring the last drop of suds out of a twisted garment.
"Yes," I returned, rising and reaching for my hat, "but how my
donkey and I can manage to live to reach 'Frisco interests me
more." And politely declining a hunk of pork rind and black bread
offered me for a pocket lunch, much to the gratification of the
house cat, I sallied forth into the biting blast, knocked several
icicles from Mac A'Rony's whiskers, and headed for the state
capital.
Further on we tarried a few moments to exchange a word or two with
an inquisitive hayseed, who planted himself in the road before us,
and stretched forth a brawny hand for both of us to shake.
"Yer th' feller what's goin' to Fran Sanfrisco, hain't yer?" the
old man questioned, bracing himself against the boisterous gale.
"Yep," I replied laconically. And at once Mac, yielding to a
mighty gust of wind, dashed past the animate obstruction, dragging
his master with him.
"Whar be th' biggest crops this year?" he called after us; and
Mac, assuming the question was put to him, shouted, "In ostriches.
Some of them weigh several stone." As I looked back from the hill,
I saw the statuesque figure still gaping at us behind a long,
frost-colored beard.
The roads to fame and to the capitol are hilly. Fame seemed to be
more easily reached in slippery weather than the capitol in dry.
Albany had just experienced a heavy rain, and the roads had
frozen. We set out Monday morning to pay our respects to the
Governor, the Mayor and other shining lights. When half way up the
ascent to the capitol, Mac A'Rony slipped off his feet and slid to
the bottom of the hill. Of course, I stayed with him; in a moment
we had won fame. The excited populace thronged about us, and the
reporters hauled out their paper and pencils. One toboggan slide
satisfied Mac, and I was compelled to return him to the stable and
go alone.
The Governor was in his chair of state when I arrived at the
Executive Chamber. The rumor that the odd traveler, Pye Pod, was
in the ante-chamber brought a smile to his lips, which he still
wore when he rose to grasp my hand, relishing the humor which I
had failed to taste.
"Don't you find it pretty cold traveling these days?" the Governor
inquired, as he sat down to write in my autograph album.
"Rather," said I. The Governor chuckled, wished me good luck on my
journey and commended me for my pluck. Then I was ushered through
the magnificent capitol.
After lunching with an aunt, I visited the Mayor. He, like other
notable men, received me graciously and wished me joy, prosperity
and health.
Tuesday I hustled early and late to earn a dollar above the
expenses of my sojourn in the up-hill city. Wednesday morning I
received a small check, the first remittance from the papers. It
was only two days before Christmas. The Holiday season seemed to
have absorbed all the money in circulation. The snow now lay six
inches deep on the level; it had snowed all night and was snowing
still. I greatly needed a pair of felt boots with rubber
overshoes, but couldn't afford the outlay. So I wrapped strips of
gunnysacks round my shoes and trouser legs, bought a pair of
earlaps, and saddling my donkey, started for Schenectady,
seventeen miles away.
People had cautioned me that donkeys were afraid of snow. I was
most agreeably surprised to find Mac A'Rony an exception to the
rule; but in another respect, he puzzled me very much. For five
days he had not been known to drink, and I concluded that, like an
orchid, he slaked his thirst by sucking the juice out of the
atmosphere. When I ushered him into the snow, he rubbed his nose
in it, and tasted it to satisfy himself that it wasn't sugar, and
then majestically waded through, as if it were so much dust.
And so, with less than two dollars in pocket and some fifty photos
in my saddle-bags, I urged my donkey through the blinding gale to
a road-house, four miles out of Albany, where tethering him to a
huge icicle under a low-roofed shed, I went into the tavern to
toast my hands and feet, and to warm my inner self.
A few moments later found us fighting the elements again. And
though we stopped at fully a dozen houses on that day's journey, we
reached Schenectady soon after dark, with my face black and blue
from the snowballs Mac rolled with his hoofs and slung at me (he
claimed, unintentionally). Both of us were in prime condition to
appreciate a hot supper and a soft, warm bed. After seeing my
comrade safely sheltered in the hotel barn and leaving instructions
with the stable-keeper to lock the door, I spent a pleasant hour
with the other hotel guests, who gathered about to hear my story,
and to give me all kinds of valuable and worthless advice on
traveling with a donkey.
What happened that night may be better understood by reading the
following page from my diary:
"It is midnight, halfway between Christmas eve and Christmas
morning. For the last three hours I have been looking all over
town for Mac. I went to the stable at nine o'clock to fill his
stockings, and lo! he was missing. Where he can possibly be and
how he got there is beyond my power of conception. I found the
lock in the barn door unbroken, but scratched about the keyhole,
as if it had been picked. The landlord and the stableman are of
the opinion that Union College boys have stolen the donkey and
hidden him, just for mischief. In my rambles I failed to detect a
sign of any student. A squad of volunteers from among the hotel
guests, armed to the teeth and carrying lanterns, were kind enough
to go with me donkey hunting, but nothing more than a few ominous
traces of Mac's stubborn resistance did we discover. A tuft of
donkey hair and a gory human tooth were picked off the barn floor,
and also, just outside, a section of the seat of a man's trousers,
all of which indicates that the donkey is the unwilling prisoner
of a band of wags.
"Going down Fifth Street to Union, we detected Mac's little
foot-prints and a college society pin. Just beyond, I found
another lock of hair, this time human, indicating some football
fiend had parted with a portion of his mane. A torn cravat, a
finger of a kid glove, and a piece of human flesh resembling part
of a nose, were noted by different members of the posse. Thence
on, we traced with much difficulty my donkey's hoof-marks a mile
or more into the suburbs, where we lost them. It was then 11:30 P.
M. A concensus of opinion resulted in the verdict that at that
point the animal had been put in a sleigh and drawn to some hiding
place and that further search that night was useless. I am now
going to retire, and trust to luck for Mac A'Rony's safe return
to-morrow."
When I went to breakfast Christmas morning, I amused myself while
my order was being filled by perusing the Schenectady "Daily
Tantrims." You may imagine my astonishment upon reading the
following:
GRAND OPENING
Of the Canal Skating Rink.
Greatest Social Function of the Season.
COLLEGE BOYS AND SOCIETY THERE.
A Donkey on Skates.
"Those who were not 'let in' to the private ball given at the
new Canal Ice Rink on Christmas Eve by the Union boys who
remained here over night to enjoy the Holidays, missed a rare
and novel entertainment. It proved to be a side-splitting as
well as an ice-breaking affair. Carefully laid plans were
successfully carried out, and the diminutive donkey belonging to
the quixotic traveler, Prof. Pythagoras Pod, became the guest of
honor at the first rink party of the season. The jackass seemed
to relish the sport immensely. Two pairs of skates were securely
buckled on his feet and, declining the proffered assistance, at
once the precocious tyro struck out in four several directions
at once, coming down on the not over thick ice kothump! on his
Antartic pole, deluging four propositions of Euclid, seven
principles of unnatural philosophy, and three dozen young men
and women.
All would have gone well had the jack not been so conceited.
He, just like an ass, thought he knew it all. If he ever cut any
ice in his life he did it then. Being of a generous disposition,
he made ample accommodations for a crowd who, like his asinine
self, came out for a skate and were hardly prepared for a
baptism.
Pandemonium reigned. There were several narrow escapes from
drowning; even Mac A'Rony barely averted a sublime decease, and
bellowed like a freight engine. However, as he was the only
donkey of the whole party that piloted himself to terra firma
without assistance, he deserves much more praise than the fools
that were so unwarrantably thoughtless as to imperil a hundred
precious lives in their selfishness to have a good time at the
expense of an humble beast.
As soon as the panic had subsided, a new rink was cleared
further down the canal, where the Christmas fete was prolonged
to a late hour. The terrified animal was here supported on two
parallel bars held by strong men; and he promised to remain
upright henceforth. To say the least, his frantic efforts to do
the "pigeon wing" on the star-spangled firmament nearly capsized
his pall-bearers. Guards had been posted at various points to
apprise the practical jokers, if the donkey's master should come
uninvited on the scene, but it seems that, by crafty, foxy
methods, the Professor had been led by false scent to the
suburbs. So the fun continued.
After the ball was over, Mac A'Rony was returned in safety to
his stall. The little fellow appeared to be the nimbler from his
cold-water plunge, and was so elated over his extraordinary
exploits that he brayed all the way to his quarters."
As soon as I heard Mac I rushed out to the barn bare-headed, and
threw my arms round his neck. I found the little fellow joyously
rummaging in four huge stockings filled with corn bread, molasses
cake, mince pie, carrots, and apple-sauce. "I had a h--l of a time
last night," was all he said.