And I said: "You can't say that to me. We've got the right of way here,
because I live in that house with the green door."

"Oh, you do," says he. "Well, baby dear, go in and tell yer wimmin folks
ye've lost your cap"; and he chucked my cap right into the canal!

Well, I couldn't get it, without falling in, and there was the
canal-boat coming along ready to run over it. So I took my fishing-rod
and flicked it at him, and there--I had caught the eel after all! It
struck him, all cold and slippery, and he yelled, and it hit the mule,
and the mule ran away, dragging the other mule with it, right up the
slope to Rabbit Run Bridge!

[Illustration: "So I took my fishing-rod and flicked it at him"]

The boy had grabbed the fishing-rod, so that my rod and my eel went
with them.

My! but I was mad, but kind of excited, too, for a man came up from the
inside of the canal boat and yelled, and the man on the deck woke up and
yelled, and the boy was yelling!

There was a farmer driving along the road and across the bridge and when
he saw mules coming, lickity-split, where mules never come,--right up to
the bridge,--he yelled too, and licked his horse to get out of the way.
The boy, he licked the mules with my rod. He'd thrown my eel back into
the water.

He was as cool as could be, and by and by he got the mules calmed down,
and one of the men from the boat jumped off and helped him and they got