CHAPTER XLV.
BY MAC A'RONY.
O, that he were here to write me down an ass! but, masters, remember that I am an ass; though it be not written down, yet forget not that I am made an ass.--_Much Ado About Nothing._
My sojourn in the famous Mormon Capital was too short for my taste. I shall remember it as long as I have bra'in's. I am proud to say that I was initiated into the Mormon faith and took unto myself no less than eleven wives; and I would have outrivaled Brigham Young in connubial conquests if Pye Pod had not bribed the Elders and put an end to my marital ambitions.
While a guest at the Tithing House, I found it well stored with asinine and equine luxuries. The Bishop and many charming lasses brought me bread, cake, apples and jam, and some genial fellow of a convivial turn tapped a bottle of rum punches. After imbibing a few "balls," I was quite ready to tipple Cheese, Damfino and Skates, and right here let me say, that of all skates I ever knew or heard about, the last named takes the palm as an artist in "high-jinks." While she gave a clever exhibition of an inebriated athlete, the rest of us donks lay stupidly on a bunch of hay, which was one-tenth of some Mormon's harvest, and reveled in day dreams.
Skates had reached that stage of her circus where she was burlesquing a Shetland pony cavorting on two legs, when Coonskin announced it was time to start. None of us stirred, except Skates. She showed the man how superbly she could pirouette on her left legs around the corral; then, suddenly, she toppled over in front of him, and reached for the bottle lying at his feet. Coonskin grabbed the bottle, smelt of it, eyed each one of us distrustfully, flung it over the fence, and prodded us all on to our feet. You can bet he had a hard job to keep two of us standing, let alone all four of us. He looked disgusted, turned on his heel, and made for the gate at once.
When Coonskin returned, he bore a pail of water in each hand. Indeed, the forgiving old soul, I thought, is going to refresh us and wash that dull, brown taste out of our mouths. Staggering to my feet, I advanced to meet him. Damfino and Cheese were almost dead to the world, but Skates made for the man on a lop-sided trot, arriving at one pail just as I reached the other. Into the liquid we dipped our nozzles, and as quickly jerked them out. What strange tasting water!
"Water from a mineral spring," observed Skates. "No, it's a bromo-seltzer," said I. Then each drank about a fourth of a pailful, and would have drunk more, but Coonskin snatched the pails away, and, it seems, transposed them.
Again we fell to drinking. But, so help me Balaam! soon something began to boil and sizzle inside of me. I thought I had swallowed a school of swordfish, but immediately a geyser raged within, and, like a shot, spouted out of my mouth, spraying Coonskin's face; and almost simultaneously Skates played another fountain in the man's eyes.
"Seidlitz powders!" I gasped, trying to catch my breath, which seemed to have left me forever. And didn't that man curse the whole race of jackasses! Dropping the pails, he ran for a pump.
Presently Coonskin returned. "You infernal scapegraces!" he exclaimed, as he eyed me and picked up the pails.
My recent experience had quite restored me to a rational donkey, and, remembering that "a soft word turneth away wrath," I said, "You are too eager to fix the blame on an innocent creature, Master Coonskin. The recent episode which was so distasteful to us three, and most exasperating to you, points a good moral. Never become so absorbed in the virtues of a cure that you are blind to its possible effect upon your patient."
The man left us, shaking his head and talking to himself, and administered the dose to Damfino and Cheese.
When Coonskin first visited us it was eleven o'clock. Damfino did not sound eight brays to announce the sun's meridian and the hour for barley, but we donks were considered sober enough to be packed by one o'clock, although in poor condition to travel. It was an effort for me to walk, an impossibility to walk straight. My asinine comrades grunted and groaned from nausea, and Cheese complained that we had been cheated of our mid-day meal.
When we arrived at the Hotel, Pod had just finished his luncheon. Damfino looked into the hotel portal and brayed. Then Pod came out, got into my saddle, and amid great applause from the assembled citizens, piloted our caravan down the broad thoroughfare, out of the lovely poplared streets and hospitable, home-lined avenues, past orchard and field and cottage and windmill, over the road to Garfield Beach, on "that mysterious inland sea," a few miles from the city. Once or twice, as I wabbled across the level and luxuriant valley, I turned my head for "one last, lingering look behind," though I confess I did so timorously, with a feeling intermixed with superstitious foreboding, as I recalled the story of how Lot's wife turned into a pillar of salt. It suggested itself to my reason that if there was one spot on earth indigenous to such a dire transformation it was right in that Salt Lake valley.
There, above and behind us, and across the majestic towers of the Temple, lay Fort Douglas, the gem frontier post of America, its white painted fences and barns glistened like meerschaum in the sunshine, with lovely drives and walks, and smooth-cut foliage, and sleek-broomed lawns of emerald, and fountains (not charged with seidlitz), and blooming flowers. And beyond towered the rugged, snow-crowned summits of the "eternal barrier" which holds the fort below, and guards with loving care the "Land of Promise" and that so-called "modern Zion" at their feet, like a dog guards his bone when threatening elements are wagging his way.
We arrived at Utah's Coney Island, Garfield Beach, late in the middle of the afternoon. This famed resort, named after the martyr President who was the victim of an assassin, is a very pleasant retreat on the lake shore. It is accessible by railroad train, horse and buggy, or donkey engine, although few people accept the latter mode of conveyance, as Pod did, I observed.
Pod stopped to swim and float on Salt Lake. Then we went on and brought up at a delicious fresh-water well, in front of the Spencer Ranch-house, where I led my asinine quartette in the song of the "Old Oaken Bucket." An audience at once gathered. Mr. S---- invited us all to tarry for the night, and when the Prof. accepted, we donks gave three "tigers" and a kick, which struck the ranch dog as being most extraordinary. Landing on the other side of the fence, he yelped himself into the house without further assistance.