American drama -- 20th century; American essays -- 20th century
So it was that Charmian remained obdurate, until, one day, I got her
behind the Outlaw for a forty-mile drive. For every inch of those forty
miles the Outlaw kicked and jumped, in between the kicks and jumps
finding time and space in which to seize its team-mate by the back of the
neck and attempt to drag it to the ground. Another trick the Outlaw
developed during that drive was suddenly to turn at right angles in the
traces and endeavour to butt its team-mate over the grade. Reluctantly
and nobly did Charmian give in and consent to the use of Maid. The
Outlaw's shoes were pulled off, and she was turned out on range.
Finally, the four horses were hooked to the rig--a light Studebaker trap.
With two hours and a half of practice, in which the excitement was not
abated by several jack-poles and numerous kicking matches, I announced
myself as ready for the start. Came the morning, and Prince, who was to
have been a wheeler with Maid, showed up with a badly kicked shoulder. He
did not exactly show up; we had to find him, for he was unable to walk.
His leg swelled and continually swelled during the several days we waited
for him. Remained only the Outlaw. In from pasture she came, shoes were
nailed on, and she was harnessed into the wheel. Friends and relatives
strove to press accident policies on me, but Charmian climbed up
alongside, and Nakata got into the rear seat with the typewriter--Nakata,
who sailed cabin-boy on the Snark for two years and who had shown himself
afraid of nothing, not even of me and my amateur jamborees in
experimenting with new modes of locomotion. And we did very nicely,
thank you, especially after the first hour or so, during which time the
Outlaw had kicked about fifty various times, chiefly to the damage of her
own legs and the paintwork, and after she had bitten a couple of hundred
times, to the damage of Maid's neck and Charmian's temper. It was hard
enough to have her favourite mare in the harness without also enduring
the spectacle of its being eaten alive.
Our leaders were joys. King being a polo pony and Milda a rabbit, they
rounded curves beautifully and darted ahead like coyotes out of the way
of the wheelers. Milda's besetting weakness was a frantic desire not to
have the lead-bar strike her hocks. When this happened, one of three
things occurred: either she sat down on the lead-bar, kicked it up in the
air until she got her back under it, or exploded in a straight-ahead,
harness-disrupting jump. Not until she carried the lead-bar clean away
and danced a break-down on it and the traces, did she behave decently.
Nakata and I made the repairs with good old-fashioned bale-rope, which is
stronger than wrought-iron any time, and we went on our way.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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