The silver messenger. (Challis, Idaho) 1890-1912, 1901-10-01
MINE MULES PUZZLED
Brought Above Ground They Are
Daxed by Daylight.
So Long Used to subterrAnean Dark
ness the Grass and Fields Are
= source of wonaernent
90 Them.

At the time of the recent strike OF
the mine firemen in the anthracite coal
fields hundreds of mules from the va
rious mines were brought to the sur
face. Most of the animals had not
seen daylight for many years, and
some of them had quite forgotten all
they ever knew about pure air, green
grass, and blue sky, says the Phila-
,delphia Press.
1t was a pathetic as well as an
amusing sight to see these animals
turned loose to Craze in the fields. The
daylight dazed them, and 1t was with
difficulty that they could be forced
from the cage and driven to the fields,
and there their antics were pitifully
humorous. Crowds lined the fences
each day.
The mules, free from the driver and
the whip, stood for long time seem
ingly afraid to move. TO them the soft
springy ground, so different from the
ties and rails and rocks of the mines,
was insecure. The air, the grass, the
space, the unbounded room to move,
bewildered them. They walked slow
ly and with hoofs tapping the ground
many times before step was attempt
ed, and it was hours and sometimes
days before they gained sufficient con-
fidence to run and tumble and roll.
But when they realized that the
strange surroundings were harmless
and actually enjoyable, they reveled
in their new-found freedom, hee-
hawed, kicked up their heels, and gam
boiled very much in the manner of the
schoolboy set free after long and
arduous school term.
The grass was the greatest mystery
to them. Instinct doubtless told them
1t was good to eat, smelled inviting, but
1t was so strange, so new that it was
long before they gained courage to
nibble and to eat it.
Air and light made many of the
mules study for hours before they
knew that the novel world into which
they had been raised was not thing
of mystery and that they felt better
by breathing and could see better
after the novelty had worn off than
they ever could see in the dark and
narrow passages of the mines.
The extent of the fields, too, was a
source OF great wonderment to them.
Here they did not knock their heads
against the roof, for there was no
roof; nor Craze their sides against the
rib, for there was no rib; only space
above and about them, unlimited, in
comprehensive space, a new, strange
thing, with which most of them had to
get acquainted by degrees.
Those who had enjoyed the freedom
for day, as they met the newcomers,
bumped into them, to see them lose
their balance on the yielding ground,
rolled under their noses, kicked up
their heels, and played with them
much as a boy swimmer will play with
a younger one.
In the days which the strike lasted
most of the mules experienced new
sensations which they may never re-
peat, for they were hustled after their
brief freedom down into the dark
depths and narrow iron-paved pass
ages where their only light is the faint
flicker of the miners lamp, their air
the gas and smoke-stained heaviness
Of the mine, their food the hay and
oats which taste little like the green,
fresh grass, and their gamboling con-
fined to the narrow space of five-foot
stall