Baddeck, and That Sort of Thing eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 128 pages of information about Baddeck, and That Sort of Thing.

Baddeck, and That Sort of Thing eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 128 pages of information about Baddeck, and That Sort of Thing.
capacious head.  I should like to feel that thrill of physical delight he must have experienced in merely closing his hand over something.  It is a pity that he could not have been educated all through, beginning at a high school, and ending in a university.  There was a field for the multifarious new education!  If we could have annexed him with his island, I should like to have seen him in the Senate of the United States.  He would have made foreign nations respect that body, and fear his lightest remark like a declaration of war.  And he would have been at home in that body of great men.  Alas! he has passed away, leaving little influence except a good example of growth, and a grave which is a new promontory on that ragged coast swept by the winds of the untamed Atlantic.

I could describe the Bay of St. Ann more minutely and graphically, if it were desirable to do so; but I trust that enough has been said to make the traveler wish to go there.  I more unreservedly urge him to go there, because we did not go, and we should feel no responsibility for his liking or disliking.  He will go upon the recommendation of two gentlemen of taste and travel whom we met at Baddeck, residents of Maine and familiar with most of the odd and striking combinations of land and water in coast scenery.  When a Maine man admits that there is any place finer than Mt.  Desert, it is worth making a note of.

On Monday we went a-fishing.  Davie hitched to a rattling wagon something that he called a horse, a small, rough animal with a great deal of “go” in him, if he could be coaxed to show it.  For the first half-hour he went mostly in a circle in front of the inn, moving indifferently backwards or forwards, perfectly willing to go down the road, but refusing to start along the bay in the direction of Middle River.  Of course a crowd collected to give advice and make remarks, and women appeared at the doors and windows of adjacent houses.  Davie said he did n’t care anything about the conduct of the horse, —­he could start him after a while,—­but he did n’t like to have all the town looking at him, especially the girls; and besides, such an exhibition affected the market value of the horse.  We sat in the wagon circling round and round, sometimes in the ditch and sometimes out of it, and Davie “whaled” the horse with his whip and abused him with his tongue.  It was a pleasant day, and the spectators increased.

There are two ways of managing a balky horse.  My companion knew one of them and I the other.  His method is to sit quietly in the wagon, and at short intervals throw a small pebble at the horse.  The theory is that these repeated sudden annoyances will operate on a horse’s mind, and he will try to escape them by going on.  The spectators supplied my friend with stones, and he pelted the horse with measured gentleness.  Probably the horse understood this method, for he did not notice the attack at all.  My plan was to speak gently to

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
Baddeck, and That Sort of Thing from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.