Page:1880. A Tramp Abroad.djvu/280

 remains of an old sulky,—said he just wanted to see those green Tennesseans stare and gawk when they saw him come



a-ripping along in a sulky,—didn't believe they'd ever heard of a sulky in their lives.

"Well, on the 29th of August he sold his colored coachman,—said he didn't need a coachman for a sulky,—wouldn't be room enough for two in it anyway,—and besides it wasn't



every day that Providence sent a man a fool who was willing to pay nine hundred dollars for such a third-rate negro as that,—been wanting to get rid of the creature for years, but didn't like to throw him away.

"Eighteen months later,—that is to say, on the 15th of February, 1837,—he sold the sulky and bought a saddle,—



said horse-back riding was what the doctor had always recommended him to take, and dog'd if he wanted to risk his neck going over those mountain roads on wheels in the dead of winter, not if he knew himself.