This was not a good thing for me at all, but I had to make the best of it. Moreover, I had to do what I had never done before—I had to drive six mules, and there was only one rein to drive them with. This was the fashion, but it was a very difficult matter for a youngster to get the hang of it. You jerk, jerk, jerked, if you wanted the lead mule to turn to the right, and you pull, pull, pulled if you wanted her to go the left. While we were going on in this way, with a stubborn mule at the wheel and a drunken nigger on the wagon, suddenly there came out of the woods a thick-set, dark-featured, black-bearded man with a bag slung across his shoulder.
“Hello!” says he; “you must be a new hand.”
“It would take a very old hand,” said I, “to train a team of mules to meet you in the road.”
“Now, there you have me,” said he; and he laughed as if he were enjoying a very good joke.
“Who hitched up your team?” he asked.
“That drunken nigger,” said I.
“To be sure,” said he; “I might have known it. The lead-mule is on the off side.”
“Why, how do you know that?” I asked.
“My two eyes tell me,” he replied; “they are pulling crossways.” And with that, without asking anybody’s permission, he unhitched the traces, unbuckled the reins and changed the places of the two front mules. It was all done in a jiffy, and in such a light-hearted manner that no protest could be made; and, indeed, no protest was necessary, for the moment the team started I could see that the stranger was right. There was no more jerking and whipping to be done. We went on in this way for a mile or more, when suddenly I thought to ask the stranger, who was trudging along good-humoredly by the side of the wagon, if he would like to ride. He laughed and said he wouldn’t mind it if I would let him straddle the saddle-mule; and for my part I had no objections.
So I crawled up on the cotton and lay there with Crooked-leg Jake. I had been there only a short time when the nigger awoke and saw me. He looked scared.