HOW JOSIAH WOULD PLAY POLO.
But truly they got their pay. Whitfield not bein’ used to it, and bein’ so tuckered out with the recreation and rest he had been a havin’, it lamed him dretfully, rheumatiz sot in, and his sufferin’s was intense. And then a base-ball hit him—or anyway he got hurt awfully when he was a playin’ some game, base-ball, or billiards, or polo. That is a game, polo is, that I never heard on in my life before, and Josiah was awful interested in it when I told him about it. And he said he should deerly love to learn to play it. That man acts frisky now, a good deal of the time, and is a great case to foller up new idees.
But I told him it would be dretful foolish for him to try to learn it, for the old mare had enough to do now, without that. It is played on horseback, and from the name I s’pose they try to hit each other with poles, or hit the horses, or sunthin’. I don’t really understand it well enough to give directions about playin’ it straight and correct.
But Josiah was all carried away with the idee, and stuck to it he should love to play it, love to like a dog. Says he: “How I should enjoy to take a game with old Bobbet. Why,” says he, “let me get onto the old mare, and give me a good, strong hop-pole, and I believe I could fetch the old man down the first blow.”
But I discourage the idee, and don’t mean to let him undertake it. Says I, “Josiah Allen, it stands you in hand at your age to not go to caperin’ round, and actin’, and get all the other old men in Jonesville all rousted up about it, and a actin’. And I should think,” says I, “that one lame one in the family is enough, without your chasin’ after pleasure on the old mare, and mebby both of you get killed in the job.”
I guess I have kinder broke it up; I don’t believe he will try to learn the game. But as I was a sayin’, in that or some other of the games Whitfield got hit on his elbo, right on his crazy-bone, and I s’pose it made him most crazy. But the doctor thinks with the best of care he may get over it, and use his arm again.
Tirzah Ann’s dancin’ didn’t give her the rheumatiz; it seemed to hurt her more inwardly, the doctor says, brought on a kind of weakness. But where she got her death-blows (as it were), what laid her up, and made her bed-sick, was goin’ in bathin’, and drinkin’ so much mineral water. Ridin’ out on the water so much come hard on ’em both, for it made ’em sick as snipes. Every ride was so severe on ’em it almost spilte their stomachs. Tirzah Ann never could bear deep water—was always afraid of it. But she wasn’t goin’ to have Miss Skidmore bathe, and she not, not if she drounded herself in the operation. So she went in, and got skairt the minute the water was over her knees; it skairt her so she had sort o’ cramps, and gin up she was a droundin’. And that made it worse for her, and she did crumple right down in the water, and would have been drounded if a man hadn’t rescued her. She was a sinkin’ for the 3d time when he laid holt of her hair, and dragged her out. She hain’t got over the fright yet, and I am afraid she never will.
THE RESCUE.
THE RESCUE.