But Chugg gave no heed, and once he sang the “Ballad of the Mule-Skinner,” with what seemed to both terrified passengers an awful warning of their overthrow:
“As I was going down the road,
With a tired team and a heavy load,
I cracked my whip and the leaders sprung—
The fifth chain broke, and the wheelers hung,
The off-horse stepped on the wagon tongue—”
This harrowing ballad was repeated with accompanying Delsarte at intervals during the afternoon, but as Mary and the fat lady managed to escape without accident, they began to feel that they bore charmed lives.
At sundown they came to the road-ranch of Johnnie Dax, bearing Leander’s compliments as a secret despatch. The outward aspect of the place was certainly an awful warning to trustful bachelors who make acquaintances through the columns of The Heart and Hand. The house stood solitary in that scourge of desolation. The windows and doors gaped wide like the unclosed eyes of a dead man on a battle-field. Chugg halloed, and an old white horse put his head out of the door, shook it upward as if in assent, then trotted off.
“That’s Jerry, and he’s the intelligentest animal I ever see,” remarked the stage-driver, sobering up to Jerry’s good qualities, and presently Johnnie Dax and the white horse appeared together from around the corner of the house.
This Mr. Dax was almost an exact replica of the other, even to the apologetic crook in the knees and a certain furtive way of glancing over the shoulder as if anticipating missiles.
“Pshaw now, ladies! why didn’t you let me know that you was coming? and I’d have tidied up the place and organized a few dried-apple pies.”
“Good house-keepers don’t wait for company to come before they get to their work,” rebukefully commented the fat lady.
Mr. Dax, recognizing the voice of authority, seized a towel and began to beat out flies, chickens, and dogs, who left the premises with the ill grace of old residents. Two hogs, dormant, guarded either side of the door-step and refused so absolutely to be disturbed by the flicking of the towel that one was tempted to look twice to assure himself that they were not the fruits of the sculptor’s chisel.
“Where’s your wife?” sternly demanded the fat lady.