With a quick, nervous stroke I drew the knife across the rope.
The machine started—at first with a little jerk, then with a slow rolling motion, gradually increasing in speed, until at the end of six or eight rods it was under rapid headway.
The Dublin boys at first stood still, looking on in gaping admiration at the wonder, till they suddenly remembered that they were there to race it, when they started off after it.
Our boys naturally followed them, as we couldn't see any more of the fun unless we kept up with it.
It was a pretty even race, and all was going on smoothly, when down the first cross-street came a crowd of women, apparently very much excited, many of them with sticks in their hands. The sight of our moving crowd seemed to frenzy them, and they increased their speed, but only arrived at the corner in time to fall in behind us.
At the same time, down the cross-road from the other direction came a drove of cattle, pelted, pounded, and hooted at by two men and three boys; and close behind them was Dan Rice's Circus, which had been exhibiting for two days on the Falls Field, and was now hurrying on to the next town. Whether it was because of the red skirts worn by many of the women in front of them, or the rumbling of the circus so close behind them, I did not know, but those cattle did behave in the most frantic manner.
And so the whole caravan went roaring down the turnpike—Phaeton in his flying car at the head, then the Dublin boys, then our boys, then the mothers of the Dublin boys, then the drove of cattle, then the circus, with all its wagons and paraphernalia,—the striped zebra bringing up the rear.
| "THE WHOLE CARAVAN WENT ROARING DOWN THE TURNPIKE." |
It soon became evident that the mothers of the Dublin boys were proceeding on erroneous information—however they got it—and supposed that the contest between us and their sons was not a friendly one. For whenever one of our boys lagged behind in the race, and came within reach of their sticks, he was pretty sure to get a sounding whack across the shoulders. I dare say the Dublin boys would have received the same treatment if they had not been ahead of us in the race, which they always were, either because they were better runners, or better prepared.