The whole thing approached gingerly, creeping up like a yellow cat. It was a toss-up as to which of the two’s eyes popped the biggest, or had her mouth shut tightest. The old mare was game, and sidled up, and just as I saw the wheels begin to form in her head and the occupants throw down the lines and begin to pop two pair of country-yarned legs out of the two sides of the buggy, exclaiming: “_Fur ther Lord’s sake thar, Mister, ketch ’er!_” I jumped out and had her by the bits. One of them relieved herself by spitting snuff over the dashboard, while the other took it out on me, deprecating the day when “Sech folks an’ things blocks up ther public trail—an’ so he’p me, ain’t that thar Mister Trotwood, an’ my old man bred this mar’ by his say so! Trotwood Ananias,” she sniffed, as she drove off. The next were right on us—two slick, three-year-old sugar mules, hauling a load of darkies. They came on in a rattling clip, making more noise than a freight train, jollying, laughing and cackling. The men were on plank seats across the wagon, the women in high-back hickory chairs, squatting low and feeling as good as Senegambians usually do in a white man’s country, where he does all the worrying and thinking and they do all the loafing and eating. They passed us without a wabble. I expected that, for a mule, like a negro, never sees anything until he has passed it. I saw the gate of the wagon had been taken out in the rear to let the damsels in; also the chickens, the coop of ducks, a bundle of coon-skins, pumpkins, a sack of unwashed wool, some spare ribs and a tub of only such nice chitlings as a country mammy can prepare. They passed, and then the scare got into those three-year-old corn feds good, by way of their tails. For I saw these straighten out first, then their ears. I saw the big driver fall back on the lines, and— “_Whoa, dar!_” They jumped twenty feet the first jump, and ran half a mile in spite of his lugging and sawing. But the first jump was enough. The damage was done then, for everything in it but the driver, who held on to the reins, came boiling out of the rear. Up the road for half a mile was a telegraph line of chitlings—the rest were mixed up. They all rose but one damsel, weighing close to 468 pounds. She sat still. A young buck went to help her up. “G’way f’m heah, nigger—wait till I see ef my condiments is busted,” she cried, feeling her sides and her chest. “Sides, I wants Brer Simon to hope me up.” Brother Simon helped her and she was all right. We gave her a dollar and the others a quarter each. It was expensive, but I deemed it just. _Dey wuz all right den!_ The following then passed with more or less hesitancy, shying and plunging: A surrey and team; a boy and his best girl; a log wagon and four mules, the leaders rushing by in terror, pulling the wheelers by the neck, as they were trying to go the other way.