"Why, what's the matter?" he said. "Oh, not much. Jerry pulled his tail off," we said. "Oh," Mr. French said, "it's only a pleasure trip."
My husband was for going home, but I said, "Oh no, you won't go back. I'm all wore out now with the baby. This is a pleasure trip and we want you to have all the pleasure there is."
We got to St. Anthony at eight thirty, tired—oh, dear! We did some shopping and came back with a big load; made six miles in the afternoon and stopped at the six-mile house for the night.
Across Bassett's creek was a narrow, tamarack pole bridge. We might have known there would be trouble but we never thought of it. Old Jerry seen the water and made one lunge for it. One ox went over the edge of the bridge and one went through, and there they hung across the beam. We skedaddled out the backside of the wagon. "Well, Martha, I guess we will be killed yet," I said. But Mrs. French never smiled. She took her pleasures sadly.
The men took the pin out of the ox yokes and let the oxen down into the water and they grazed while the men went on a half a mile to borrow an ax and cut tamarack poles to fix the bridge. We stayed all night again at Mr. Clay's and got up Sunday morning and started. When we got to Tepee hill I said, "I'll walk down this hill. I rode up it."
The rest of them rode. I walked on through the woods to Mr. Barnes' beyond Long Lake and got there just as supper was ready. They wanted me to eat supper, but I said, "No, they are coming on in a few minutes. I'll just take a cup of tea." I waited—and waited—and waited—for an hour or so; and they didn't come. Finally I ate my supper and they came.
"Well, what in the world," I said, "is the matter?"
Well old Jerry had got in the creek at the bottom of Tepee hill, the outlet of Long Lake into Minnetonka and they couldn't get him out. Mrs. French was in the wagon and the mosquitoes like to ate her up.
We got to our place that night. It was Sunday night and we'd been gone since Wednesday morning. We wanted the French's to stay all night, but they said they couldn't think of it; they had to go. Their mother had a girl staying with her and expected them back Thursday night and would be scared to death wondering what had happened to them. So they left the oxen and took the path through the woods. I started in to get supper for my husband and I heard them hollering. I said, "They're lost. Go out and yell as loud as you can and build a big fire." They got back to our place all right and had to stay all night. Mrs. French followed me out to the barn. "Don't it make you mad to hear of that pleasure trip?" she said. The men couldn't get through talking about it. "Well, it makes me mad," I said, "but I can't help laughing."
"Well," Mr. French yawned, "I believe this winds up the pleasure trip."