“The train was delayed half an hour that mornin’, ’cause the engineer, conductor and all hands jumped off the cars and ran down to the balloon. Peg-leg Dibbly, the Mexican war veteran, was thar, hobblin’ around among the rest. He was in such a hurry to git down to the tree he wouldn’t go around by the road, but started in to take a short cut across the marsh with the crowd. And he had a sweet, sweatin’ time of it too, now I can assure you. First his cane would stick, and just about the time he would git that out, down would slide his iron-shod leg fully a foot into the mud, and stake him thar like a scarecrow. Then he would look down to where the people were standin’, and jerk and swear until the want of breath only would make him let up. He got down thar after a while though, but he had to crawl considerable before he could do it; and arter he got thar he was bobbin’ here and bobbin’ thar, tryin’ to git a better look up into the tree, until at last he stumbled and fell across one of Dud Davis’ young ‘uns, and gin her left leg a compound fractur’. She set up a screamin’, and he was so weak and frightened he couldn’t git up agin no how, but lay thar gruntin’, and sprawlin’, and kickin’ his one leg around. The blacksmith was thar himself, and when he seed his young ’un down in the mud with her leg broke, you never seed a man so mad in all your born days. He jest ran and grabbed the old pensioner by the coat collar, and slung him mor’n fifteen feet, landin’ him slidin’ on his back in the mud, like a crawfish. [Illustration: A RIGHT ANGLED TRY-ANKLE.]