Watch Yourself Go By

by Al. G. Field

Alfred grabbed the handles and started with the wheel-barrow he did not know where, his sole object being to stall and make the boss believe he was at work. Along a narrow plank walk he pushed the gruesome load, weaving, wobbling at every step, threatening to go off one side or the other at any moment, headed for the dump where all the water-soaked, discarded tan bark was deposited.

Reaching the dumping ground, standing between the handles of the wheel-barrow, Alfred attempted to overturn it. The handles overturned Alfred. Down the steep incline, rolled Alfred, wheel-barrow and contents in one conglomerate mass, Alfred under the avalanche of cows' ears, tails, etc.

Mrs. Hampton witnessed from her back porch the race down the dump pile. Calling a couple of boys the lady led the way to where Alfred lay, digging him from under the slimy mess. The boys loaded the soaking figure into the wheel-barrow and carried him home.

Sammy Steele used as motive power in his bark mill a fine white mare and an iron grey mule. When Alfred could not get the use of the white mare he rode or drove the mule. Alfred's parents and others continually cautioned him to beware of the mule, that it was vicious and would surely kick him.

When the boys arrived at Alfred's home and Lin saw them assisting the almost senseless boy into the house, she began: "Well, fur the luv of all thet's holy, what's the rumpus now? I'll bet a fip Sammy Steele's mewel's kicked thet boy."

The boys did not reply, depositing their burden on the floor, hastily departed. To Lin's persistent inquiries, Alfred admitted that the mule had kicked him. In a maudlin way he stuttered: "L-o-o-k-o-u-t, Lin, she'll k-k-i-c-k you." Then he laughed a silly laugh.

Lin was convinced that the boy was out of his head, delirious from the mule's kick, sent for the doctor who came in haste. Lin explained that she was "skeered nearly to death. I wus yar all alone an' they kum draggin' him in. I tried to talk with him but he's plum out of his head. His mother an' his pap an' me an' all of us hes warned him time an' 'gain that that mewel would be his death, but he jus kept a-devilin' aroun' hit; now ye see what kum of hit. He's jus like he had a stroke of palsy, hit's a wonder the mewel hedn't killed him stun dead. Ef hits palsied him he mought jus es well be dead."

Thus Lin ran on as the old doctor carefully looked the patient over. The doctor had long practiced in Brownsville. Tomato vine poisoning cases were rare. Alfred's ailment on this occasion was common. He made no mistake in diagnosing the case although he did not inform the family of his conclusions. However, he assured them that "the boy would be all right in a day or two. His appetite might not come to him at once but he would be all right in the morning. Just let him sleep, don't wake him, and when he gets out caution him to—keep away from the mule," added the doctor dryly.

Lin said: "Be durned ef hit ain't the queerest case I ever seed. Alfurd's jus es sick es he kin be an' the old doctur didn't gin him nothin'."

A few days later it was whispered among the neighbors that Alfred and a number of the tan-yard hands broke into Bill Wyatt's cellar and drank up all his liquor and Alfred, "little as he wus, drinked more'n eny of em." George Washington Antonio Frazier 'lowed that Alfred "drinked so much he wouldn't want another drink fer a month. I wouldn't ef I'd hed his cargo," he concluded.