I recall the incident so vividly. First sounded the noisy swish of the mower, next the fragrant air was hazy with flying hair, hat, man and mowing machine. A moment of painful silence followed, when suddenly a clatter from the roof of the house indicated that the jackass had promptly returned the machine to its owner.
Poor Pod, it looked as if he were no mower. The farmer laid him gently on the grass, where he finally awoke, and with the aid of hard cider and a fanning machine was restored. Three miles beyond he caught the refractory jack that meant only to harm the machine, he said, and not the man, and securing a slipnoose to Poodle's tail, roped him to my saddle; next he tied Cheese to my tail, and leaping aboard his new expedient led the way.
All at once Poodle espied two donkeys grazing in a field. "I must say a farewell to my sweethearts before leaving," he protested, braying and making a dash for the fence, dragging me after him. I often wonder if he had any feeling left in his tail after that; for while it pained me to drag Cheese, it must have caused Poodle more pain to tow us two by resorting to such a sensitive extreme. Had not the fence been a thorn hedge, I verily believe that that "Samson" would have dragged us across lots to his sweethearts. I never saw Pod so enraged.
On nearer approach to Rochelle, we stopped in front of a house where Pod purchased a drink of milk of a woman who was passing milk cans to a man in a wagon. Neither the man nor the woman asked a question, much to my surprise, until we had proceeded some distance, when to prevent a tragedy, nature asserted herself and impelled the woman to call out: "Say, what be them thar animiles ye-ve got, stranger?"
"Two are camels, and one is a dromedary," Pod yelled.
"Dromedary!" The woman exclaimed; and, to the man, added, "That's a new sort of dairy I never heered tell of. Did you, Hank?"
[CHAPTER XXII.]
Rat trap and donkey's tail
BY PYE POD.
"By my faith, Signor Don Quixote," quoth the duchess, "that must not be; you shall be served by four of my damsels, all beautiful as roses." "To me," answered Don Quixote, "they will not be as roses, but even as thorns pricking me to the very soul; they must in nowise enter my chamber."—Don Quixote.