“So I jest drapped aboard him agin, and looked aloft to see what I’d gained in changing quarters; and, gentlemen, I’m a liar if thar warn’t nigh half a bushel of the stingen’ varmints ready to pitch into me when the word ‘go’ was gin!
“Well, I reckon they got it, for ‘all hands’ started for our company! Some on ’em hit the dogs—about a quart struck me, and the rest charged old Brindle.
“This time, the dogs led off fust, ‘dead’ beat, for the old Deacon’s, and as soon as old Brindle and I could get under way, we followed. And as I war only a deck passenger, and had nothin’ to do with stearin’ the craft, I swore if I had we shouldn’t have run that channel, any how!
“But, as I said before, the dogs took the lead—Brindle and I next, and the hornets dre’kly arter. The dogs yellin’, Brindle bellerin’, and the hornets buzzin’ and stingin’! I didn’t say nothin’ for it warn’t no use.
“Well, we’d got bout two hundred yards from the house, and the Deacon hearn us and cum out. I seed him hold up his hands and turn white! I reckon he war prayin’ then, for he didn’t expect to be called for so soon, and it warn’t long, neither, afore the hull congregation, men, women, and children, cum out, and then all hands went to yellin’!
“None of ’em had the fust notion that Brindle and I belonged to this world. I jest turned my head, and passed the hull congregation! I seed the run would be up soon, for Brindle couldn’t turn an inch from a fence that stood dead ahead.
“Well, we reached that fence, and I went ashore, over the old critter’s head, landin’ on t’other side, and lay thar stunned. It warn’t long afore some of ’em as war not so scared, come round to see what I war, for all hands kalkelated that the bull and I belonged together! But when Brindle walked off by himself, they seed how it war, and one of ’em said:
“ ‘Mike Fink has got the worst of the scrimmage once in his life!’
“Gentlemen, from that day I drapped the courtin’ bizziness, and never spoke to a gal since! And when my hunt is up on this yearth, thar won’t be any more F I N K S and it’s all owin’ to Deacon Smith’s Brindle Bull.”