effort, bred of the wildest despair, we managed to rein him in at a
sharp right angle, and we succeeded in calming his fury, and tied the
panting, trembling fiend to a post. Then Gusta mounted guard while I
walked home in the heat and dirt, fully half a mile to summon John.

I learned that that horse had never before been driven by a woman. He
evidently was not pleased.

Soon the following appeared among the local items of interest in the
Gooseville Clarion:

Uriel Snooks, who has been working in the cheese factory at
Frogville, is now to preside over chair number four in Baldwin's
Tonsorial Establishment on Main Street.

Kate Sanborn is trying another horse.

These bits of information in the papers were a boon to the various
reporters, but most annoying to me. The Bungtown Gazetteer announced
that "a well-known Boston poetess had purchased the Britton Farm, and
was fitting up the old homestead for city boarders!" I couldn't import a
few hens, invest in a new dog, or order a lawn mower, but a full account
would grace the next issue of all the weeklies. I sympathized with the
old woman who exclaimed in desperation:

"Great Jerusalem, ca'nt I stir,
Without a-raisin' some feller's fur?"

At last I suspected the itinerant butcher of doing double duty as a
reporter, and found that he "was engaged by several editors to pick up