On A Donkey's Hurricane Deck Part 14

I was interested in a group of little girls who were being taught a game. One wee child with a big head--bigger than I had ever been accredited with--was sitting in an invalid's chair with her head resting in an iron prop, because it was too heavy for one body to support in those hard times, and seated around in ordinary chairs were epileptic, paralytic, cross-grained idiots, etc., so far advanced toward health and sanity by careful training as to play a game.

While the great object of this school is to provide the unfortunates with a comfortable home and prevent intermarriage, a few are graduated every year and transferred to the large farm owned by the inst.i.tution. I heard the Feeble Minded Bra.s.s Band play; its music I thought quite equal to that of many normal bands I had heard. The birthdays of great men (excepting that of Pythagoras Pod), are celebrated, and birthday parties given.

The superintendent drove me back to town and urged me to fetch my donkey out to entertain the idiots, and invited me to dine with him. So not telling Mac about the place, I rode him to the Home, where I found my host and his a.s.sistants ready to receive us.

"Shylock there will a.s.sist you," said the superintendent, pointing to a hump-backed inmate.

When we got Mac to the hall entrance the circus began. Two attendants helped Shylock boost the donkey while I guided his head, and we managed to pitch the beast headlong into the slippery hall, where he landed three times in succession--first, on his knees and heels, second, on his tail, and third, on his back. I think he imagined he was on ice, for he lay perfectly still, afraid to move.

The hall floor was cleared, but a bunch of idiotic heads stuck out of every doorway, and peals of hyenish laughter reverberated through the building. Finally we got Mac on all fours, and I rode him slowly down the hall amid the hysterical shouts and screams of the physically strong, if feeble-minded children, and talking, yelling and commanding attendants, all of which so frightened my sensitive mount that he squatted down on the floor, rolled over on his side, and brayed. Did you ever hear an a.s.s bray in any confined s.p.a.ce? It is awful! These unmanageable pupils and their overtaxed preceptors fairly went mad, while Mac yelled, "h.e.l.l is empty, and all the devils are here!"

The hall was now a swarming, uncontrollable ma.s.s of unbridled lunacy in human mould; romping, tumbling, fainting, and taxing the united strength and strategy of the surprised officials to bring order out of chaos. The jacka.s.s went into a veritable fit, kicked the plaster off the walls, shattered an incandescent light globe, nearly rolled on top of an idiot who took him for a p.u.s.s.y cat, and brayed himself hoa.r.s.e. Suddenly he leaped to his feet and ran akiting down the tiled hall floor until it turned; then he tried to turn, and flopping off his feet, came down on his vertebrae. As soon as we could get him out of doors, I handed him over to Shylock and went into dinner with the laughing superintendent. I never want another experience like that. The disappointing feature about the show was that probably not one idiot would remember it over to the next day.

The following morning my party set out over a black muddy road.

Thrifty looking farm-houses, many of them of brick, were scattered along our route, and sheep and cattle basked in the suns.h.i.+ne on the south side of strawstacks, often attracting wistful glances from my long-eared partner. Arriving at Churubusco, I put up at a comfortable hotel near the railroad where the noisy pa.s.sing trains kept me awake most of the night, and resumed the journey next day, after lunch.

Some four miles beyond the village we came to a new iron bridge, without its approaches filled in. No workmen were about. A single two-by-twelve plank was stretched from the bank to the bridge at both ends to enable people to cross, but evidently quadrupeds were supposed to ford or swim the stream. I tarried some moments thinking what best to do, when presently a countryman happened by, and helped me carry a plank from the roadside to widen the bridge approach for my donkey to walk.

What an a.s.s Mac was! He attempted to walk the planks sideways, and consequently fell into the deep miry hole, almost into the stream.

I feared he had broken his back, but he escaped injury. The farmer helped me uncinch the saddle and get Mac up the steep bank on to the road; then we transferred the plank at the other end of the bridge to that end and made a three-plank foot-bridge. Finally we got Mac on to the bridge proper, and by transferring the three planks to the other end I managed to overcome the obstacle, and proceeded on the journey, after the loss of two hours. My hat had antic.i.p.ated the animal into the hole and was flattened by his weight; thereafter it supported a gable roof.

Two hours after dark we came to a barn that looked roomy and airy, and as the next town beyond Wolf Lake was so far away, I concluded we might as well take possession of it for the night. The barn door wasn't locked, so I led my animals in, and struck a match. No horses were visible, but a box stall contained a cow and a calf.

Prowling about with lighted matches, I discovered a buck sheep, hiding behind his wool in fear of my big dog. I found a measure of grain for Mac and a.s.signed Don to a pile of hay near the door, then tucked myself in some straw and drew my mackintosh over my shoulders, prepared for a night's rest.

I was almost asleep when the calf bawled; again when on the brink of Lethe, the sheep bleated. Suddenly my restless donkey kicked a board off the side of the barn and set Don to barking. I yelled, "Shut up!" Again the dog barked. The next second he made a leap in the dark, followed by a loud commotion, and at once the atmosphere indicated plainly what kind of an animal the dog was after. I couldn't get out of the door without running the lines, which seemed perilous indeed. Mac kicked and brayed as he never had before, and my dog was running round the barn trying to get away from the atmosphere or something. And I was as busy as the rest endeavoring to bury myself in the straw. Presently the dog and the buck sheep went to settling some misunderstanding, fighting like demons. The cow and calf then began to bellow in a discordant duet, and fearing lest any moment the cow would break the bars of her stall and enter the general fray, I dug all the harder in the straw. All at once, amid the obscured exciting scene and above the tumult, I detected an agonizing groan, and suspected Don was squeezing the life out of the sheep or the calf or the nuisance; but when it was all over and I heard the victim gasping in its death throes, it was plain that my dog had shaken all the strength out of our unwelcomed guest.

It was impossible for me to go asleep in that great, airy barn. I crawled out of the straw, and got my donkey out of doors as quickly as possible. As for Don, I felt indifferent about his joining our company, if he proposed to be familiar. On over the deserted highway we groped our way; the dog sneezing, coughing and rolling by the roadside, the half-suffocated jacka.s.s breathing hard and braying faintly for more air, and I soliloquizing vociferously about the existence of useless creatures.

The wind blowing head on, I kept some distance ahead of Mac, and threw mud and stones at the dog, which now seemed particularly fond of his master, and continued my tirade against such obnoxious things as we had lately run against.

"Every creature has some redeeming virtue," Mac A'Rony remarked after a while. "Above all things, don't belittle the skunk; he's the best financier in the world. He could go into the Stock Exchange and bull the market with one scent, and all the members together couldn't bear it." Mac was ever doling out to me unwelcome philosophy under trying circ.u.mstances.

We reached Ligonier, a fine little town eleven miles away, the next day in time for one o'clock dinner. Since entering Indiana I had not made expenses; and my little reserve fund was vanis.h.i.+ng. I had been told that Ligonier was a moneyed town, and its people liberal; so I tried to secure a hall for a lecture, but failing, I spoke my piece in the street. Fully two hundred persons a.s.sembled to hear me, and encored enthusiastically. I concluded with pa.s.sing my hat and collecting 32 cents. I talked again three hours later on the same spot, and was rewarded with a contribution of three cents. I think that collection for a lecture is a record-breaker.

Goshen was reached next day by 5 P. M. The Scripture speaks of Goshen as the land "flowing with milk and honey," but as I have been told, I am somewhat rusty on Biblical history. At any rate, I looked forward to replenish my depleted exchequer here, if I had to resort to extreme measures. Before retiring, I made up my mind I was going to be awfully disappointed with Goshen. The people of the section of country I had threaded from the Ohio boundary were incredulous, superst.i.tious, penurious and suspicious, and those characteristics seemed to reach their superlative in that particular town.

Monday dawned still and sunny--an ideal day for hanging out clothes, but not s.h.i.+ngles. I hung out mine, nevertheless; it was essential to Mac's welfare and to mine, to say nothing of the dog's.

A drummer showed deep interest in my pilgrimage, and I asked him how he made out with his business. I had failed signally. He said he was glad I spoke to him on the subject, and drew me aside.

"See all the thrifty-looking wagon-teams. .h.i.tched on the two sides of the Court House Square?" said he; "See those squads of grangers standing around waiting for something to turn up? Well, every stranger is looked upon with suspicion. If he attempts to drum up a new business among these fossils, he is immediately branded a 'fake.' After I had made two unsuccessful trips to this section, I vowed I would make the third one a success. A fake article sold by a first-cla.s.s imitation drummer would just about catch these people. And ever since that day I have been unloading on them, and reaping a big harvest. Do you see the moral?"

I said I did, and thanked him. After lunch, during which I was accredited extremely thoughtful, I drew my friend aside and whispered, "I have it. I'll buy some axle-grease, and mix it with sweet oil, and sell it for eye salve!" The drummer eyed me as he might a wonderful character, felt of my head, and said I'd win out. At once I went to a drug-store for some pill boxes, blank labels and perfume, and to a hardware store for axle-grease and sweet oil; then retired to my hotel room, and mixed my "Eye Elixir."

As soon as my magic healing wares were ready to put on the market, I hunted up a sore-eyed tramp I had seen on the street that day, and promising him a percentage of my receipts, got him to a.s.sist me to get even with the folks he, too, had a grudge against. When I was fairly started on my eloquent talk about the virtues of "Eye Elixir," the tramp walked up with the quarter I had given him, and asked for "another box," saying to the crowd, he'd been looking for me all over the country and was glad to find me, for his eyes being almost well from using the first box began to get worse when he had no more salve, which was the only thing that ever helped his sore eyes. He said, if he could afford it, he would lay in a lot of it for future use, not knowing where he could get any more.

Then a boy stepped up and bought a box, and an old woman bought two boxes, and the sales proceeded so fast when once started that I soon sold out, and took in $7, selling twenty-seven boxes of "Eye Elixir" besides the box I had sold to the tramp. I paid him one dollar for his services, with which he was delighted. This left me a net profit, after deducting the cost of making the salve, of $4.90, paying my expenses in town and leaving me a small balance. Then I cleared out of Goshen as quickly as possible. Oh, Shakespeare, how truthfully you said, "What fools these mortals be!"

I resolved that when I should return East I would go by s.h.i.+p around the Horn, or by train across the Isthmus, or else choose a trans-continental route which would give that section, honied and milked by Pye Pod, a wide berth.

CHAPTER XVII.

Yankee Doodle came to town, Riding on a pony, Stuck a feather in his cap, And called him "Mac A'Rony."

--_Old Ballad._

A county poor-house on the road to Elkhart attracted my notice when I was about to pa.s.s it by. My outfit was recognized by a man raking the front lawn, and he urged me to visit the inst.i.tution; so, thinking I might devote a quarter-hour to the cause of self-education, I tied Mac in the yard, and was shown through the dirtiest and most uninteresting building I ever inspected.

Old, lazy-looking men, with empty heads in full hands, lounged about on benches, and several others in the hospital ward seemed to be trying harder to die than to live. One wrinkled but round-faced wench, with a soiled bandage round her ears and forehead, was smoking a well-seasoned pipe in the kitchen while stirring mush. I was glad to see the house prison empty. Five minutes indoors sufficed me; and, bidding my escort a hasty adieu, I piloted Mac on to Elkhart.

Arriving in the city, I at once procured a license to sell pictures on the curb, a precaution I had been timely advised to take, and one that was rarely necessary on that trip. Then, before going to eat and to rest my tired bones, I led the donkey to a prominent corner in the business center and began to sell. I had disposed of two photos only, when a policeman with unusual pomposity ordered me away, but I continued to make sales and, as he was about to take me in custody, shook my license in his face, causing much merriment to the crowd.

Soon the cheering attracted the Mayor to the scene, and he, to my surprise, not only bought a chromo, but paid me for the privilege of riding Mac A'Rony. The jack reluctantly consenting, his Honor got into the saddle and rode down the half-choked thoroughfare a block and back amid thunderous applause.

The profits from my sales did not meet my expenses, including the cost of license, so I hurried on to Mishawaka, where, after supper I delivered a street lecture, pa.s.sed my hat and collected 24 cents. I would yet be stranded in Indiana, at that rate. Mac advised me to leave town at once, and we made for South Bend at dark, reaching that city by ten o'clock. And there with only $6.50 in pocket, I put up at a small hotel and tossed in bed half the night, wondering how I should save myself.

"The darkest hour is just before dawn," and it was about that time when I recollected having received, a few days before my pilgrimage began, a letter from a Mr. Adams, of Chicago, extending me an invitation to be his guest, should I pa.s.s through that city.

It was one of many letters received at the time, which I had not answered. I now regretted my negligence, but nevertheless, next morning, with due apologies I wired him to expect me on a certain train, and planned for a week's absence.

The lenient hotel proprietor agreed to take care of my animals as security for my hotel and stable bill; then I purchased a return ticket for emergency, and boarded the train for the Windy City, trusting to a dollar and a half, to my wits, and to "luck" to carry me through.

As I stepped off the train in Chicago, a stranger grasped my hand and gave me a most cordial greeting.

"Laying for me, eh?--first man I meet a confidence man," I muttered inwardly. But he was extremely courteous, and offered to carry my saddle-bags.

"No, sir," I said, politely. "I've carried them twelve hundred miles, and can carry them three thousand more."

"Pod is your name, all right;" the stranger continued, half in inquiry, half in surprise, I thought, as we walked out of the railroad station.

"You bet it is," I said, emphatically. "Just because you've plenty of wind out here you needn't think it can blow away my name."

"Well," said he, cheerfully, "Our wind is said to be the best brewed in all this country. It may not be strong enough to blow away pods, but I'll wager it can blow the pease out of 'em so far you never can find them." The man's facetiousness interested me; it bespoke his nerve.

"Tell me, Mister," I said, after walking several blocks, "where are you taking me, anyhow?"

"Oh, just three blocks more, then we take a cable," said my escort, as he made another futile grab for my countryfied luggage.

When on the car, this confidence man had the confidence to introduce me to a pal, as the New York gentleman and scholar, Professor Pye Pod, who was surveying a trans-continental turnpike from the observation platform of a jacka.s.s.

"I want to know!" exclaimed bunco man number two; and suddenly, a new light affecting to dawn on his brain, he added, as if to disarm my suspicions, "I see. I see. I have it now. You are the journalist I've read about,--said to be well fixed--first visit to Chicago?"

"Not much," I returned. "Been here dozens of times. Can't say I'm well fixed, though, with only a dollar and a half to my name."

At this stage of the dialogue, I saw a police station. "Come with me," I said, "I want to procure a license. Then we'll have a 'smile.'"

And, to my utter surprise and gratification, both men stepped off the car and followed me like faithful dogs into the police station.

"Where's the Chief of Police?" I inquired of a man in uniform, who stepped toward me.