The Early Experiences of Ralph Ringwood - Page 2

head that it would be an immense public advantage to introduce a breed of
mules, and accordingly imported three jacks to stock the neighborhood. This
in a part of the country where the people cared for nothing but blood
horses! Why, sir! they would have considered their mares disgraced and
their whole stud dishonored by such a misalliance. The whole matter was a
town talk and a town scandal. The worthy amalgamator of quadrupeds found
himself in a dismal scrape: so he backed out in time, abjured the whole
doctrine of amalgamation, and turned his jacks loose to shift for
themselves upon the town common. There they used to run about and lead an
idle, good-for-nothing, holiday life, the happiest animals in the country.

"It so happened that my way to school lay across this common. The first
time that I saw one of these animals it set up a braying and frightened me
confoundedly. However, I soon got over my fright, and seeing that it had
something of a horse look, my Virginian love for anything of the equestrian
species predominated, and I determined to back it. I accordingly applied at
a grocer's shop, procured a cord that had been round a loaf of sugar, and
made a kind of halter; then summoning some of my schoolfellows, we drove
master Jack about the common until we hemmed him in an angle of a 'worm
fence.' After some difficulty, we fixed the halter round his muzzle, and I
mounted. Up flew his heels, away I went over his head, and off he
scampered. However, I was on my legs in a twinkling, gave chase, caught him
and remounted. By dint of repeated tumbles I soon learned to stick to his
back, so that he could no more cast me than he could his own skin. From
that time, master Jack and his companions had a scampering life of it, for
we all rode them between school hours, and on holiday afternoons; and you
may be sure schoolboys' nags are never permitted to suffer the grass to
grow under their feet. They soon became so knowing that they took to their
heels at the very sight of a schoolboy; and we were generally much longer
in chasing than we were in riding them.

"Sunday approached, on which I projected an equestrian excursion on one of
these long-eared steeds. As I knew the jacks would be in great demand on
Sunday morning, I secured one overnight, and conducted him home, to be
ready for an early outset. But where was I to quarter him for the night? I
could not put him in the stable; our old black groom George was as absolute
in that domain as Barbara was within doors, and would have thought his
stable, his horses, and himself disgraced, by the introduction of a
jackass. I recollected the smoke-house; an out-building appended to all
Virginian establishments for the smoking of hams, and other kinds of meat.
So I