Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-09-15

buggy drivers. I had another OF those ex-
periences with the playful young person OF
Maryland. This one was teeny tot OF n
girl driving an outrageously fat Shetland
pony hitched to one OF those wash basket
looking two-wheeled phaetons. The Shet-
land pony was SO fat and loggy that he
wheezed like an estimate brewer with
every step he took. but life stil mad some
sort of interest for him. Anyway. when
the little girl. with an imperious gesture of
her puny little hand. motioned to me to
stop. the Shetland seemed to be quite I'M
commonly interested in my machine. So
far from being scared by Il, ho trudgea
right out of his way to walk up and smell
of the tonneau. He looked like he just
loved automobiles, he sure did, and OF
course there wasn't a reason In life why
should have been compelled to pull up for
him. But the little girl driving him knew
are none OF EN- too young in the country
regions of Maryland to work that edge.
When the Shetland had got through nosing
my machine the little giri looked up at me
out of her cute little moss-agate blue eyes,
and she said to me:
Well, 90 had to stop. didn't 'oor and
then the dear little thing just laughed and
laughed so gaily, upon me ward, that
felt IL should just have loved to play
with her with a nice tough willow switch
for the longest. longest time. don't YOU
know
.The next one out of the ordinary run
to hold me up with the lordly lift of the
hand was a humorist driving an enfeebled
horse hitched to a small load OF lime. The
horse was old enough to have ante-dated
the invention of the telegraph. But the
raw-boned grinner held me up all the same
and then to make the joke more acute he
slowly souched out OF the cart and went to
the ante-bellum horses head and started
to lead him by my machine When the
horse swung slowly alongside. the man
leading still grinning as II he were attend
ing some show at the op'rey. b'gosh, no.
both eyes.
Humorist and His Blind Nag.
why said to the funnyist leading the
poor old blind brute. that horse is blind,
isn't her
Yep. he sure air. was the witty reply
OF the lime-cart driver, but we kin see fr
y'rself that he sure air a pow'ful skittsh
perfo'mer. he sure air. an 80 thought It
bes rr you all T. pull up-heh. heh! heh-'
and then he climbed back into the lime
cart and Just laughed fit to kill hisself. he
sure did.
II guess that wasn't going some for
real machine-drawn blown-in- the-bottle
funnyness. hey3
but there were daintier humorIsts ye:
to come.
Swinging by the lane leading down to a
tomato-canning factory at q slow clip. for
there was no use doing more than about
eight knots with all of those comic sup
the highway, 1 saw q small boy driving a
pair OF goats out into the main road. The
boy was seated In q little express wagon.
He was a dressy little kid. and was prob
ably the weHJbeloved heir OF the farmer
Gamer whose place we were passing. Be
lieve 1t or not, that kid no sooner caught
sight OF my machine approaching him than
he gave me that appraised hand thing.
II stopped. figured It that there wasn't
any use In being a piker when it came to
stopping. and so ! stopped. I remembered
that the letter Of the proviso read any We
hicle drawn by any kind of an animal and
that kids pair of goats were animals,
weren't they? Sure l stopped! I wanted to
see tho whole game through.
THE boy got out and took hold OF the
goats horns when stopped, and then, with
a patronizing sort OF a jerk of his head. he
signaled to me that 1 could come along.
The vindictive expression of triumph on
that t2d's face as I slowly pulled by his
pair Of hitched-up goats is a thing 1 shall
not forget IL live to be as old the last
democratic candidate for vice president Of
the United States.
Approaching little settlement called
Hartford Furnace I saw a four-ox cart,
filled with fertilizer, pulled up alongside
the road, under big hickory tree. The
Zeke In charge of the outfit was sitting In
tho shade, on a fallen stump eating some
tomatoes that he'd cribbed from the ad-
Joining field. seasoning them with salt that
he pulled out OF the pocket OF his dunga-
rees. Now, those four oxen were SO busy
lashing at flies with their tails that they
wouldn't have cared If the Vanderbilt cup
was being raced for right alongside OF
them And they weren't moving any way
They were standing still.
Did It Because He Gould.
"All the same. my friends and fellow
citizens, that ox-cart driver staked me to
the uplifted hand. He'd probably got so
in the habit Of holding up buzz-wagons.
according to the privilege guaranteed him
by Maryland law, that he forgot on that
occasion that his cart was standing still.
But pulled up, anyhow. Just wanted to
play the entire string out. as / say, and
amiably at a green caterpillar crawling
me to come along, and L came. Il halted
again as l drew alongside. and / said to
the jokist:
Why did you hold me I'D? Your ami
mails weren't moving
He surveyed me quizzically from under
his huge, cupola-topped straw hat, spat
along the road. and then gave me a most
winsome grin.
"T hold all O. you fellers up, podner,' he
said, with great affableness, cause 1 kin.
Thet's good 'nough reason, hain't it?
II admired his frankness so much that
l felt like presenting him with silver
loving knife-a sharp one-right there.
But he had the answer, all right-he held
'em all up because he could; because the
Maryland law made holding 'em up his
inalienable right.
wen, thatU be about all. / had lots
more experiences of the same and differ
ent sorts. but what's the use? I pulled
back near to Baltimore when the sun was
westering. and on the road. just as we were
entering the suburbs. I came upon man
driving a sure-enough balky horse hitched
to buggy. The horse was rearing and
plunging at the sight of my machine, but
1 didn't get any appraised hand from the
driver, although /, of course, stopped, any
how.
".Hey. there, don't stopn the driver OF
the buggy called out to me. Clap on all
the juice you got and slam 'er ahead four
bells and make all the noise you can! L
want this fool OF a critter to get used to
them thiugsr
Il felt like getting right out then and
there and handing that Maryiander 81
note. for my heart just welled over with
gratitude toward him."
CLARENCE L. CULLEN.
The Harvest of Death.
From the Chicago Tribune.