A PRACTICAL JOKE.
“The next night after we got there the feller come a courting, and the boys asked us to have some fun with them. The hoss was tied under a shed, and right down the road, about a hundred yards away, there was a big mud-puddle. It run clear across the road, and we could see that when the feller started for home he would have to go right through it. Jim looked the ground over, and told the boys to go and buy a hundred yards of strong clothes-line, and bring it to him.
“When they brought the clothes-line, Jim said to ‘em, ‘Tie one end of the line to the post of the shed, and tie it strong.’
“When they had done it, Jim says again, ‘Now take the line and measure it right out to the middle of the mud-puddle.’
“They measured it, and found that the other end just went to the middle of the puddle. They brought the line back, and Jim coiled it up close to the post, and then tied the loose end to the crupper of the saddle. Meanwhile some of the rest of the boys had got an old cannon out into a field just behind the shed, and loaded it up with a good charge of powder. When everything was ready it was about a quarter to twelve, and we sat down to wait.
“The feller always started home at twelve o’clock, cause the gal’s mother wouldn’t let her sit up no longer. The old lady said he might stay as long as he liked, but Mary must go to bed. He didn’t see no fun in courting all alone to hisself, and so he never staid after that time. Well, just at twelve o’clock we saw the door open, and heard a smack like bustin a cigar box with a hammer. Then he said, ‘Good night, dearest,’ and he out to his hoss, unhitched the bridle, and jumped on without looking to see if things was all right. He hit the hoss a poke in the ribs, and the critter humped himself at a gallop straight towards the mud-puddle. The rope was unwinding easy and nice, and neither him nor the hoss didn’t know nothing about it.
“When they had got almost to the edge of the puddle, Jim touched off the gun with his cigar. It sounded like a clap of thunder, and the hoss made one jump, and just as he did so he got to the end of the rope. The saddle come off, and the feller with it, and the beast went on as if he was running on a bet of ten thousand dollars, and had put up all the money hisself.
OUT OF THE MUD-PUDDLE.
“As the feller tumbled off, he gave a yell that you might have heard fourteen thousand miles away. He thought a streak of lightning had struck the hoss, and that both of ’em was being swallowed up by an earthquake. The gal was standing in the door, and she gave a scream, and ran out and met the feller just as he got up out of the mud, and was making for the house. She got hold of him, and then she fainted, and went down into the ditch by the road-side, where there was a foot or so of water. She didn’t stay fainted long; it warn’t more than a minute before she was up again. Both of ’em thought it was a flash of lightning, until they got most up to the shed, and we could see them by the light shining out of the house. They was the sloppiest, muddiest looking pair that you ever set eyes on. The feller had on a claw-hammer coat, and the water was a dripping off the tails of it like the Falls of Niagara, and his white trousers was like an old map of Africa, covered all over with black ink for unexplored country. His hat was gone, and his hair was full of mud, and looked like a swab that hasn’t been wrung out after washing the floor of a bar-room. If you’ve ever seen a hen that’s been caught in a shower, and got under a cart to get dry, you’ll know how that gal looked with her clothes all sticking to her, and she all ready to drop down again as soon as she found a good place. She said she never knew such awful thunder and lightning; and just as he said, ‘Yes, dearest,’ they stumbled over the rope, and then they see what it was. He hauled the rope in, hand over hand, jest as you’d haul in a halibut; and when he got the saddle, and found it tied to the rope, they was about the maddest pair that ever was in Hampton. The gal belonged to the church, and therefore couldn’t swear, and the feller couldn’t swear cause the gal would hear him, but he said something that sounded mighty like it. They both went into the house, where everybody had got up on account of the noise. The feller staid there that night, but he never come there no more. He seemed kind of discouraged like, and thought there was too many difficulties about courting to make it pay.”
STEALING A BABY.