"You hate them? Why?"
"Well, of all the satanic brutes, the mule is the worst. He has the cunning and the malice of an imp. Every minute he is awake he is either planning or executing some mischief, and he's always awake. My crew will need a barrel of arnica and an acre of sticking-plaster to cure them of the bites and kicks they'll get from those mules before they are landed in the West Indies. And I suppose we'll have to wear out a wagon-load of hoop-poles on the brutes to keep them from rolling the schooner upside down."
"Why, Dorn! How could they do that?"
"Easily enough. When we are loading them we have to run lines from the mast-heads to the wharf, to keep them from rolling her over there. When they are shipped, they have to be tied, head to head, along a beam running fore and aft, as close as they can well stand. By a concerted arrangement among themselves, those on one side will sway their bodies as far back as they can, and those on the opposite will sway forward. Then they will reverse the motion; and so they'll go alternately—singing with their sweet voices while they are at it—backward and forward, giving their motion to the vessel, and rolling her more and more every moment; and they would very soon have her on her beam ends if we didn't wade in among them with hoop-poles to divert them from their fun. And they are liable to play that game any minute, day or night. Oh, I've taken out one load of mules and know what to expect of them."
"Dorn, 'a man should always be able to make his mind up to bear philosophically what he knows is inevitable.'"
"Come, I give up. Let's don't talk about mules any more, little Mollie. I get mad when I think about them—even if they do pay well. But I have a pleasanter topic. Something to tell you."
"And that is?"
"That immediately upon my next return home, which will be in about six weeks, or seven, at the farthest, we will be married."
When at length Mary's lover left her that evening and she returned home, she was surprised to find Aunt Thatcher sitting on the front door step.
"Mary Wallace, I want to know where you've been all this night?" demanded the shrewish woman in a shrill key.