Still I allus get weary o' doin' the same sort o' thing day after day. That's what gets me about livin' in town; it's so blame monotonous. Out on the range now a feller can allus be expectin' a little excitement even if he ain't enjoyin' it right at the time; but in town it's just the same thing over an' over again. It's bad enough at any time; but if you want to soak yourself plumb full o' the horrors of a great city you want to wear a tin suit with an iron kettle strapped on your head that you can't take off without help. I got so blame disgusted drinkin' steam beer through a straw that if any one would 'a' dared me I'd 'a' signed the pledge.
If it hadn't been for the children I'd probably got hysterical an' been voted into the uncurable ward; but they thought I was the finest thing out, an' I used to give 'em little plugs o' tobacco for souvynears. I used to read "Ivanhoe" at night an' tell stories to the kids the next day. Some o' them thought I was a fairy godmother; an' I generally had such a gang troopin' after me that we looked like an orphan asylum out for an airin'. I allus did like children.
Well, one day I was out at the foot o' the hill neighbor-hood on Sutter Street. A lot o' cars was blockaded, an' a herd o' kids stood lookin' on. I stopped an' talked to 'em, an' the' was one little girl, just for all the world like another little girl I used to know, away back yonder in Indiana. She had the same confidin' smile an' the same big, wide open eyes; an' I felt a sort o' lump in my throat when she looked at me. She had that same queer little look that Barbie'd had when she was a child too. Her mother was named Maggie, which also happened to be the name o' the little girl I had known clear away back when I'd been a school-boy. All of a sudden I felt lonesome again; so I give the kids the slip an' skirted the car.
I started to ride up the Hyde Street hill on the other side, an' say, it was a hill! Steep? Well, it was about all Mr. Hoss could do to climb it. While I was wonderin' if I hadn't better let that part o' town go unadvertised I heard a rumble, looked up, an' saw comin' over the square o' the next street a big wagon loaded with lumber an' runnin' towards me down the hill. The' wasn't no hosses hitched to it, an' the tongue stuck straight out in front. It was comin' like a steam-engine, an' like a flash I remembered Maggie on the other side o' the car. That wagon would 'a' weighed six tons, an' any fool could see what would happen when it struck that street car.
For a second—for just one second, which seemed to last a thousand years—I was turned to stone. I could hear the crash; I could hear the screams; I could feel the horrid scrunch as car, wagon, an' all ground over poor little Maggie; and then everything cleared up, an' I could think ninety times a minute.
I turned my rope loose an' backed ol' Mr. Barrel up on the sidewalk in the wink of a hair trigger. I looked down at the hoss, an' he would have weighed a full ton himself; but I knew that he wouldn't have sense enough to brace himself when the jerk came. It was comical the way thoughts kept flashin' through my head—everything I had done, an' everything I might have done, an' a heap more beside; but the thing that worried me most was the thought that a mighty good story was about to happen, an' the chances were that I wouldn't be the one to do the tellin' of it afterward. I can talk about it easy now, but I wasn't BREATHIN' then.
On came the wagon, an' it looked as though nothin' under heaven could stop it. A strange feelin' o' weakness swept over me for a minute, and—and—darned if I didn't pray, right then. The pressure lifted like a fog, an' I sat there as cool an' still as though I was Ivanhoe, darin' the whole blame outfit to come at me in a bunch; an' I was some pleased to notice that a little group had gathered to see the outcome. My knees dug into the hoss's ribs as I circled the rope around my head, an' then at just the right instant I gave the foreleg throw. Well, it landed—everything landed. As soon as the noose caught the tip o' the tongue I yanked back on the brewer until he must 'a' thought his lower jaw had dissolved partnership.
The' never was any neater work—never. The noose tightened well out on the tongue, an' when the strain came the wagon turned in toward the sidewalk, runnin' in a big circle on the outside wheels. The jerk had lifted ol' Uncle Brewer, who didn't have gumption enough to squat, plumb out in the middle o' the street, an' just as the wagon climbed the curb an' dove into the basement office of a Jew doctor the rope tightened up with me an' the brewer square behind. It didn't last long; the' was only one cinch to the saddle, an' the first jerk had purty well discouraged that; the brewer had grew suspicious an' all four of his feet was dug into the cobble stones; the wagon was lopin' along about ninety miles a second, an' when the tug came me an' the saddle an' the tinware an' about four thousand plugs o' tobacco made a half-circle in the air an' plunged through the first story winder onto the dinin'-table—an' the family was at dinner.
Nobody was hurt; but I wish you could have seen the eyes o' that family—an' their hands—yes, an' their tonsils too. They didn't seem fully prepared. After a time the doctor got his heart to pumpin' again, an' he roars out, "Vat are you doin'—vat are you doin'?"
"I'm advertisin' tobacco," sez I, tryin' to cut the kettle off my head with a fruit-knife.