A WALKING DELEGATE
between?" said the Deacon. "Kin you put your nose down on the cow-catcher of a locomotive when you 're waitin' at the depot an' let 'em play 'Curfew shall not ring to-night' with the big brass bell?"
"Kin you hold back when the brichin' breaks? Kin you stop fer orders when your nigh hind leg 's over your trace an' ye feel good of a frosty mornin'?" said Nip, who had only learned that trick last winter, and thought it was the crown of horsely knowledge.
"What 's the use o' talkin'?" said Tedda Gabler, scornfully. "What kin ye do?"
"I rely on my simple rights—the inalienable rights o' my unfettered horsehood. An' I am proud to say I have never, since my first shoes, lowered myself to obeyin' the will o' man."
"'Must ha' had a heap o' whips broke over yer yaller back," said Tedda. "Hev ye found it paid any?"
"Sorrer has been my portion since the day I was foaled. Blows an' boots an' whips an' insults—injury, outrage, an' oppression. I would not endoor the degradin' badges o' servitood that connect us with the buggy an' the farm-wagon."
"It 's amazin' difficult to draw a buggy 'thout traces er collar er breast-strap er somefin'," said Marcus. "A Power-machine for sawin' wood is 'most the only thing there 's no straps to. I 've helped saw 's much as three cord in an afternoon in a Power-machine. Slep', too, most o' the time, I did; but 't ain't half as interestin' ez goin' daown-taown in the Concord."
"Concord don't hender you goin' to sleep any," said
[68]
