to begin with four light horses, all running, and a light rig that seems
to outrun them--well, when things happen they happen quickly. My
weakness was total ignorance. In particular, my fingers lacked training,
and I made the mistake of depending on my eyes to handle the reins. This
brought me up against a disastrous optical illusion. The bight of the
off head-line, being longer and heavier than that of the off wheel-line,
hung lower. In a moment requiring quick action, I invariably mistook the
two lines. Pulling on what I thought was the wheel-line, in order to
straighten the team, I would see the leaders swing abruptly around into a
jack-pole. Now for sensations of sheer impotence, nothing can compare
with a jack-pole, when the horrified driver beholds his leaders prancing
gaily up the road and his wheelers jogging steadily down the road, all at
the same time and all harnessed together and to the same rig.

I no longer jack-pole, and I don't mind admitting how I got out of the
habit. It was my eyes that enslaved my fingers into ill practices. So I
shut my eyes and let the fingers go it alone. To-day my fingers are
independent of my eyes and work automatically. I do not see what my
fingers do. They just do it. All I see is the satisfactory result.

Still we managed to get over the ground that first day--down sunny Sonoma
Valley to the old town of Sonoma, founded by General Vallejo as the
remotest outpost on the northern frontier for the purpose of holding back
the Gentiles, as the wild Indians of those days were called. Here
history was made. Here the last Spanish mission was reared; here the
Bear flag was raised; and here Kit Carson, and Fremont, and all our early
adventurers came and rested in the days before the days of gold.

We swung on over the low, rolling hills, through miles of dairy farms and
chicken ranches where every blessed hen is white, and down the slopes to