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Some years ago I had the following experience with that peculiar
genus known as the Georgia mule, which may seem, to those who are not
familiar with the general disposition and temperament of that beast, a
stretch of the imagination; but to those acquainted with him the truth
will be apparent.

I was travelling for an Atlanta house, and on one of my trips was
making a special effort to secure the country trade in a certain section
of the State. One day I found myself in one of the small towns on the
Georgia Central, and, after doing considerable business there, I determin-
ed to visit a large settlement in the interior of the county. The only
means of transportation was by team; so, that evening I contracted with
a farmer to hire for the next day a "spare mule and buggy" which he
owned.

I was up quite early the following morning; because I wished to
start as soon as possible in order to avoid the heat of the day; being
well aware of the proclivity of the mule to meander along as his own
sweet will dictates, especially when the sun shines hot. I found my team
waiting for me, and also found that both the mule and the buggy were in-
deed spare. The beast, an antiquated specimen, in particular engaged my
attention, and aroused in my breast many doubts and fears as to the pro-
bability of making the prospective trip and returning in time to catch the
night train going south. As he stood there, resembling in general appear-
ance the skeleton of some prehistoric animal one sees in a museum, it ap-
peared to me that it required all of his strength to support the weighty
appellation by which he was introduced to me—Shalmanezer; the farmer,
however assured me that the animal would deceive his looks. This state-
ment I afterwards learned to be true.

I could see a weary, long-suffering look in that mule's eye, and I
could imagine how his heart must have sought the vicinity of his tail,

when they disturbed his dreams of green fields and pleasant pastures, and
hitched him to an old buggy to encounter the stern realities of a dusty
road. "Verily, verily," I soliloquized, "the way of the mule is hard."
But putting aside all tender feelings, I threw my traps into the buggy,
jumped in myself, seized a stick of quite ample proportions, and began to
urge his muleship on his way. Nothing of much consequence hampered my on-
ward journey except frequent stops to do a little blacksmithing on the ve-
hicle, the four wheels of which had developed a diabolical disposition to
go in four different directions at the same time. However, considering
circumstances, I reached my destination within a reasonable time. After
having finished my business I fed my mule, bought a large watermelon for
myself, then started to catch my train.

Before I was out of sight of the settlement I began to have serious
misgivings about reaching town before a very late hour. In the morning, by
various admonitions and applications of the hickory, I had been able to get
my mule into a sort of a jog trot, but on the homeward journey he would not
even get up a respectable walk. Well, we trudged on for an hour or more
when to my dismay he stopped, stopped still. As the hour was getting late
and it was growing dark, I began advising him—with the hickory—that it
was best to proceed, but he seemed to have hardened his heart and his back
also, and paid me no heed. There I was five and a half miles from home
with no prospect of getting there in a hurry. I thought of having to spend
the whole of the next day in idleness while I might be making good commis-
sions in the town just below, and the prospect was sickening.

I began to coax my mule with some words which perhaps you will not
find in the Sunday School books, and to emphasize them with the rising
and falling inflection of the hickory across his back; but still he moved
not. Then all at once my conscience smote me. I thought that perhaps the
faithful beast might be sick. My mind reverted to Balaam, whose beast spoke

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to him when he had smitten him but three times, and here I had smitten my beast about 3,333 times. I listened almost in expectation of hearing him say, "Johnson, Johnson why smittest thou me 3,333 times?" I got out of the buggy and looked at the mule. He gazed at me with a sad, far-away expression in his eye which sent pangs of remorse to my heart. I thought of the cruel treatment I had given him; and on the impulse of the moment I went tot he buggy, got out my large, lucious melon, burst it open and laid it on the ground before the poor animal; and I firmly resolved to be a friend of the mule ever after, and to join the Humane Society as soon as I reached Atalnta.

As I watched that mule slowly munching away at my melon, I began to wonder if I had not acted a little too hastily in giving it to him, but I smothered that thought when I remembered the pledge I had just taken. When he had finished he looked around at me with a satisfied air which encouraged me; so, taking hold of his bridle and after stroking him gently for a moment, attempted to lead him off. I said, "Come Shalmanezer" and growing more affwotionate I addressed him as Shalmie, but he refused to be led. He looked at me from under his shaggy eyebrows, but the sad, far-away expression had vanished and in its stead there was a mischievous malieious gleam, born of malice aforethought. I renomstrated withhim, but that seemed only to confirm him in the conviction that it was right for him to stand ther@. I thought of my melon he had just devoured; then I grew wrathy, and right there and then renounced all of my Humane Society resolutions, and began to shower down on that mule torrents of abuse and the hickory, but all to no effect. Instead of advancing he began to "revance". I pulled on the bridle until my hands and arms were sore, but he only continued to back and to pull me along with him. When I stopped pulling he stopped backing, as soon as I began to pull he began to back. I pulled until my physical exertion began to tell on me and I hungered.

Oh how I longed for a piece of that watermelon! And I hit the mule an extra blow as a result of those longings.

I was now desperate. I sat down on the road and groaned; that groan came from the depth of my soul, and I know that I presented a perfect picture of despair. However, I determined to gather all of my remaining strength for one final effort; so I carressed him up and down the backbone two or three times as a sort of persuader, then graspin the bridle with both hands I began to pull, pull as I had never pulled before, and as I hope never to pull again; and he began to back. I continued to pull, and he continued to back. How long this order of things might have gone on I do not know, but just then a brilliant idea struck me so forcibly as to come near knocking me down. I took the mule out, and by various tying, buckling and hitching-tangling, I hitched him in again, upside down, or wrong side out, or--- well, I can't just exactly explain, but anyhow when I got through his tail pointed in the direction I wanted him to go. Then I got back into the buggy, and taking hold of the bridle began to pull and he began to back, and I continued to pull and he continued to back; and will you believe me that mule backed all the way home!

It is true we didn't travel very fast, but every time he would slow down I would put a little extra force into my pull, and he would put a little extra speed into his back. Ever and anon he would glance at me with that mischievous, malicious twinkle in which seemed to say, "I've got you this night," and I would smile back a quiet, self-satisfied smile, and give an extra pull. But when we got home that mischievous, malicious twinkle changed, and he looked at me in a dazed sort of way, and I smiled back quite abruptly. And do you know, that mule has been in a dark brown study ever since his slow brain how I managed to make him pull me home that night.

It has been quite a number of years since I left the road, but I took an oath that night I have never forgotten, that never again would I attempt to