And what was more, old brown Selim was perfectly willing to wait for her. He looked around mildly at the little mule, as if he would say: "Now, don't be in a hurry, my good Polly. Be sure you're right before you go ahead."
Polly was quite sure she was not right, and stood as stiffly as if she had been frozen to the ground, and all the cracking of whips and shouting of "Git up!" "Go 'long!" "What do you mean, dar? you Polly!" made no impression on her.
Then Harry made his voice heard above the hubbub.
"Never mind Polly!" he shouted. "Let her alone. Dick, and you other fellows, just start off your own horses. Now, then! Get up, all of you!"
At this, every rider whipped up his horse or his mule, and spurred him with his heels, and every darkey shouted, "Hi, dar!" and off they went, rattledy-bang!
Polly went, too. There was never such an astonished little mule in this world! Out of the gate they all whirled at full gallop, and up the road, tearing along. Negroes shouting, chains rattling, snow flying back from sixteen pounding hoofs, sled cutting through the snow like a ship at sea, and a little darkey shooting out behind at every bounce over a rough place!
"Hurrah!" cried Harry, holding tight to an upright pole. "Isn't this splendid!"
"Splendid! It's glorious!" shouted Tom. "It's better than being a pi—" And down he went on his knees, as the big sled banged over a stone in the road, and Josephine's Bobby was bounced out into a snow-drift under a fence.
Whether Tom intended to say a pirate or a pyrotechnic, was never discovered; but, in six minutes, there was only one of the small darkies left on the sled. The men, and this one, John William Webster, hung on to the poles as if they were glued there.
As for Polly, she was carried along faster than she ever went before in her life. She jumped, she skipped, she galloped, she slid, she skated; sometimes sitting down, and sometimes on her feet, but flying along, all the same, no matter how she chose to go.