"Whar be th' biggest crops this year?" he called after us; and Mac, assuming the question was put to him, shouted, "In ostriches. Some of them weigh several stone." As I looked back from the hill, I saw the statuesque figure still gaping at us behind a long, frost-colored beard.
The roads to fame and to the capitol are hilly. Fame seemed to be more easily reached in slippery weather than the capitol in dry. Albany had just experienced a heavy rain, and the roads had frozen. We set out Monday morning to pay our respects to the Governor, the Mayor and other shining lights. When half way up the ascent to the capitol, Mac A'Rony slipped off his feet and slid to the bottom of the hill. Of course, I stayed with him; in a moment we had won fame. The excited populace thronged about us, and the reporters hauled out their paper and pencils. One toboggan slide satisfied Mac, and I was compelled to return him to the stable and go alone.
The Governor was in his chair of state when I arrived at the Executive Chamber. The rumor that the odd traveler, Pye Pod, was in the ante-chamber brought a smile to his lips, which he still wore when he rose to grasp my hand, relishing the humor which I had failed to taste.
"Don't you find it pretty cold traveling these days?" the Governor inquired, as he sat down to write in my autograph album.
"Rather," said I. The Governor chuckled, wished me good luck on my journey and commended me for my pluck. Then I was ushered through the magnificent capitol.
After lunching with an aunt, I visited the Mayor. He, like other notable men, received me graciously and wished me joy, prosperity and health.
Tuesday I hustled early and late to earn a dollar above the expenses of my sojourn in the up-hill city. Wednesday morning I received a small check, the first remittance from the papers. It was only two days before Christmas. The Holiday season seemed to have absorbed all the money in circulation. The snow now lay six inches deep on the level; it had snowed all night and was snowing still. I greatly needed a pair of felt boots with rubber overshoes, but couldn't afford the outlay. So I wrapped strips of gunnysacks round my shoes and trouser legs, bought a pair of earlaps, and saddling my donkey, started for Schenectady, seventeen miles away.
People had cautioned me that donkeys were afraid of snow. I was most agreeably surprised to find Mac A'Rony an exception to the rule; but in another respect, he puzzled me very much. For five days he had not been known to drink, and I concluded that, like an orchid, he slaked his thirst by sucking the juice out of the atmosphere. When I ushered him into the snow, he rubbed his nose in it, and tasted it to satisfy himself that it wasn't sugar, and then majestically waded through, as if it were so much dust.
And so, with less than two dollars in pocket and some fifty photos in my saddle-bags, I urged my donkey through the blinding gale to a road-house, four miles out of Albany, where tethering him to a huge icicle under a low-roofed shed, I went into the tavern to toast my hands and feet, and to warm my inner self.
A few moments later found us fighting the elements again. And though we stopped at fully a dozen houses on that day's journey, we reached Schenectady soon after dark, with my face black and blue from the snowballs Mac rolled with his hoofs and slung at me (he claimed, unintentionally). Both of us were in prime condition to appreciate a hot supper and a soft, warm bed. After seeing my comrade safely sheltered in the hotel barn and leaving instructions with the stable-keeper to lock the door, I spent a pleasant hour with the other hotel guests, who gathered about to hear my story, and to give me all kinds of valuable and worthless advice on traveling with a donkey.