I wrote an account of this pleasure excursion, which was widely copied
by northern newspapers in which I figured as the professor and he as
the doctor, while both of us combined were called the "Shoo-Fly
Club." I quote some extracts from the description of this remarkable
excursion.
"On the early morning after our arrival in the Southland, doctor and
professor, after a brief sojourn in the arms of Morpheus, awoke to a
contest which was enough to daunt the stoutest heart.
"Mosquitoes to the right of them, mosquitoes to the left of them,
black flies above them, black flies beneath them, buzzed and stabbed
with a vengeance. We lay under our netting appalled at the profanity
and ferocity of our foes, caught in a trap from which there seemed
to be no escape. The breakfast-bell rang and rang, but we dared not
venture out among our bloodthirsty foes, for an array of bristling
bayonets was thrust through the bars long enough to hang our clothes
on, and fierce enough to suck every drop of blood from our trembling
limbs, and our only consolation was that our invariable diet of 'hog
and hominy' had so reduced the vital fluid, that our tormentors would
starve though we were slain.
"At length a brilliant thought flashed across the mind of the doctor.
'The shoo-fly--the shoo-fly,' said he; 'why didn't we think of that?
and out he went for his carpetbag, pulled out some suspicious looking
bottles labeled with the mystic words, and made for the bed, entirely
covered with a ferocious cloud of the aforesaid 'skeeters' and flies
stabbing him for dear life. We then proceeded to anoint our bodies
with this preparation, which the doctor declared to be a panacea for
all human ills; then completely clad in our armor, we sallied forth
to the crusade. Down came the fiends; they cared not for 'shoo-fly,'
cared not for blows, and our visions of fortunes to be realized from
our new discovery vanished away, but not so our tormentors.
"Regardless of Mrs. Grundy, regardless of everything save life, the
professor fled, down over the stairs he fled, pants and unmentionables
flying in the air, to the astonishment of the contraband servant
girls, for the bath-house--here at length plunged beneath the flood he
found relief. After copious ablutions the professor went back for his
friend, but the valiant doctor had retreated behind the bars, resolved
there to starve rather than again to face his foes.
"After much parleying the doctor's desire for hog and hominy overcame
all his fears, and the club marched to breakfast. Here two servant
girls armed with long fans, fought a cloud of the famished varmints,
while the club swallowed hoe cake covered with a copious lather of the
flies of the season. At length our appetites or rather we ourselves,
were conquered, and retired in disgust, leaving our foes to bury their
dead and divide the spoils of war.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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