He was a heavy man and I had all that I could do to get him on my
back, but I staggered along for some distance until I came to a swing
that some of the children had suspended to the branch of an oak. Here
I laid him down and sat upon him to rest, and the sight of the rope
gave me a happy inspiration. In twenty minutes my uncle, still in the
sack, swung free to the sport of the wind.

"I had taken down the rope, tied one end tightly about the mouth of
the bag, thrown the other across the limb and hauled him up about five
feet from the ground. Fastening the other end of the rope also about
the mouth of the sack, I had the satisfaction to see my uncle
converted into a large, fine pendulum. I must add that he was not
himself entirely aware of the nature of the change that he had
undergone in his relation to the exterior world, though in justice to
a good man's memory I ought to say that I do not think he would in any
case have wasted much of my time in vain remonstrance.

"Uncle William had a ram that was famous in all that region as a
fighter. It was in a state of chronic constitutional indignation.
Some deep disappointment in early life had soured its disposition and
it had declared war upon the whole world. To say that it would butt
anything accessible is but faintly to express the nature and scope of
its military activity: the universe was its antagonist; its methods
that of a projectile. It fought like the angels and devils, in
mid-air, cleaving the atmosphere like a bird, describing a parabolic
curve and descending upon its victim at just the exact angle of
incidence to make the most of its velocity and weight. Its momentum,
calculated in foot-tons, was something incredible. It had been seen
to destroy a four year old bull by a single impact upon that animal's
gnarly forehead. No stone wall had ever been known to resist its