It was evident to our hero that his father intended he should remain but one more night beneath the paternal roof. What mattered it to Simon?
He went home at night; curried and fed Bunch; whispered confidentially in his ear that he was the "fastest piece of hossflesh, accordin' to size, that ever shaded the yearth;" and then busied himself in preparing for an early start on the morrow.
Old Mr. Suggs' big red rooster had hardly ceased crowing in announcement of the coming dawn, when Simon mounted the intractable Bunch. Both were in high spirits: our hero at the idea of unrestrained license in future; and Bunch from a mesmerical transmission to himself of a portion of his master's deviltry. Simon raised himself in the stirrups, yelled a tolerably fair imitation of the Creek war-whoop, and shouted:
"I'm off, old stud! Remember the Jack-a-hearts!"
Bunch shook his little head, tucked down his tail, ran sideways, as if going to fall, and then suddenly reared, squealed, and struck off at a brisk gallop.
A PIANO IN ARKANSAS
By Thomas Bangs Thorpe
We shall never forget the excitement which seized upon the inhabitants of the little village of Hardscrabble as the report spread through the community that a real piano had actually arrived within its precincts.
Speculation was afloat as to its appearance and its use. The name was familiar to everybody; but what it precisely meant, no one could tell. That it had legs was certain; for a stray volume of some literary traveler was one of the most conspicuous works in the floating library of Hardscrabble, and said traveler stated that he had seen a piano somewhere in New England with pantalets on; also, an old foreign paper was brought forward, in which there was an advertisement headed "Soirée," which informed the "citizens, generally," that Mr. Bobolink would preside at the piano.