Knoxville journal. [volume] (Knoxville, Iowa) 1874-1986, 1875-05-06
Some Of the Eccentricities OF the Mule

Sometimes the wanderer takes it INTO
his head that he can sing. So long as he
| keeps this idea to himself nobody can
| complain. But a mule who has such q
| conceit is sure to publish ii. One who
has never heard mule solo can form no
idea Of the rare cacophony it involves
No musical gamut can score it; no voice
| can initiate it. Only mule can describe
1t. 1t is one of the grossest outrages on
the public peace ever devised. Happy
| for the nearer If the bray be confined to
one mule; but when two or three hum
| bred happen to meet together and some
| base prompter among them says, "Breth-
| rem, let US Bray" the antiphonal response,
which is never refused, is perfectly over
whelming. ] remember one poor mule
who lost his life because he would per-
sistently exercise this gift in an Indian
country, and SO betray the command to
the enemy. He was shot as traitor
and nuisance.
There is no other animal, according to
| popular opinion, so commonplace in his
character as mule. Yet there is no
other creature which has so many native
piquancies. Even his virtues are piquant
and his vices are still more so. 1t is
| sometimes difficult for the observer to
| distinguish one from the other, yet in the
! mind of the mule have no doubt they
are clearly Disseminated.
| OF all strange and unheard-of situa-
tions in which animals find themselves
those which the mule seeks out and occu-
pies are the most serious and the most
| comical. Unharness six-mule team,
place the animals side by side and fasten
their heads together and drive them down
to water; there do not live six animals of
another species that can twist themselves
| into such strange knots. The Gordian
knot was nothing in comparison. 1t
seems impossible for them to keep their
tails all the same way. Before you get
have got into the middle, and that the
heads of two or three are just where
their tails should be- At the outset the
relationship would be numerically de-
scribed as follows:
/ Q 3 4 8 8
Returning from water the arithmetic
would be-
. & %
The kicking and fghtingin the disturbed
Enumeration would terminate seriously if
the teamster did not with his "black-
snake" hold the balance Of power, and
whip the confusion INTO unanimity. The
fact is, mule has keen zest for giving
surprises. His capability and resource
in this direction are remarkable. Per-
haps Absalom was never more surprised
in his life than when his mule went un-
der the thick boughs of great oak, and
his head caught hold of the oak, and he
was taken up between the heaven and
the earth; and the mule that was under
him went away" Whether this instinct
for surprises shows itself in his head or
in his heels, the mule never fails to make
an impression. Perhaps a morbid love
of notoriety affects him. At all events
he is strongly ambitious. Of all his
ventures and enterprises / know Of
none more elevated and illustrious than
one which occurred on the Yellowstone.
We had camped about two o'clock in the
afternoon in the river valley, and turned
the mules out to Craze near by. Back
from the river was an almost inaccessible
bluff, $50 feet high, commanding view
of the scenery for miles around. About
two hours after pitching our tents
we happened to cast a glance
at the top of this bluff, and
there, to the establishment of everybody,
was solitary mule on its very highest
| poihe, SooiiJ dho Sdimly tdhluS survey
of the surrounding country The pecul-
lar exaggeration which the atmosphere
in that latitude gives to objects seen
against the sky made him seem about
twelve feet high. There he stood in
calm and lofty serenity, manifesting no
emotion whatever except that of perfect
| self-satisfaction. How the animal got
up there nobody knew. WHAT he went
| for was still less evident. There was
good grass on the plain; the bluff was
perfectly barren. The mule had travelled
twenty miles that day, and could not be
| lacking exercise. Two conjectures
offered themselves to the superficial
mind; he had gone up there on volunteer
picket duty, or else to take view of the
scenery. But there was only one
! adequate reason: be climbed that hill
because he was mule. And 80 as q re-
suit of this effort TO fathom and analyze
the mule we come back to the very
proposition with which we started, the
simple proposition of identity. The
mule is mule. What more could be
said?-,S. j. Barroaos, in atlantic Monthly
|