Wagon Driver Quotes

I do not want to know what you will hope for. I want to know what you will work for. I do not want your sympathy for the needs of humanity. I want your muscle. As the wagon driver said when they came to a long, hard hill: ‘Them that’s going on with us, get out and push. Them that ain’t, get out of the way’.

The Gedalists were nearly run down by a Dodge truck on which two grand pianos had been loaded: two uniformed officers were playing, in unison, with gravity and commitment, the 1812 Overture of Tchaikowsky, while the driver wove among the wagons with brusque swerves, pressing the siren at full volume, heedless of the pedestrians in his way.

The Troll Patrol was an institution unique to Dun Hythe. Long ago, the city leaders had recognized the need to control and direct the heavy wagon traffic that flowed to and from the port area. They organized a patrol of citizens for this purpose and all went well for a while. No one knows who allowed the first troll to join up, but word immediately spread throughout the troll community that one of their number had a paying job with unlimited donuts. Soon after that, every opening in the patrol attracted dozens of trolls who brazenly persuaded non-trolls to withdraw their applications. Within a few years, trolls had taken over the organization. Trolls proved to be particularly inept at traffic control. A member of the Troll Patrol could station himself in the middle of a deserted intersection and, within minutes, he would create a traffic-snarling mess. To keep the enraged wagon drivers under control, the trolls relied upon truncheons. A whack or two in the head always knocked a driver groggy and made him a lot less noisy.

Most Christians are like a man who was toiling along the road, bending under a heavy burden, when a wagon overtook him. The driver kindly offered to help him on his journey. He joyfully accepted the offer but, when he was seated, continued to bend beneath his burden, which he still kept on his shoulders. "Why do you not lay down your burden?" asked the kind-hearted driver. "Oh!" replied the man, "I feel that it is almost too much to ask you to carry me, and I could not think of letting you carry my burden too." And so Christian who have given themselves into the care and keeping of the Lord Jesus still continue to bend beneath the weight of their burdens and often go weary and heavy-laden throughout the whole length of their journey.

Hercules And The Wagoner A CARTER was driving a wagon along a country lane, when the wheels sank down deep into a rut. The rustic driver, stupefied and aghast, stood looking at the wagon, and did nothing but utter loud cries to Hercules to come and help him. Hercules, it is said, appeared and thus addressed him: "Put your shoulders to the wheels, my man. Goad on your bullocks, and never more pray to me for help, until you have done your best to help yourself, or depend upon it you will henceforth pray in vain." Self-help is the best help.

I never came upon the place without emotion, and in all that country it was the spot most dear to me. I loved the dim superstition, the propitiatory intent, that had put the grave there; and still more I loved the spirit that could not carry out the sentence—the error from the surveyed lines, the clemency of the soft earth roads along which the home-coming wagons rattled after sunset. Never a tired driver passed the wooden cross, I am sure, without wishing well to the sleeper.

From that night the thousand streets ran as one street, with imperceptible corners and changes of scene, broken by intervals of begged and stolen rides, on trains and trucks, and on country wagons with he at twenty and twentyfive and thirty sitting on the seat with his still, hard face and the clothes (even when soiled and worn) of a city man and the driver of the wagon not knowing who or what the passenger was and not daring to ask. The street ran into Oklahoma and Missouri and as far south again as Mexico and then back north to Chicago and Detroit and then back south again and at last to Mississippi. It was fifteen years long.

Consequently, despite the appearance of many new human jobs, we might nevertheless witness the rise of a new useless class. We might actually get the worst of both worlds, suffering simultaneously from high unemployment and a shortage of skilled labor. Many people might share the fate not of nineteenth-century wagon drivers, who switched to driving taxis, but of nineteenth-century horses, who were increasingly pushed out of the job market altogether.15

Friedrich’s soldiers saw them and started hooting and whistling. “I haven’t convinced her yet! Stop carrying on, or she’ll run the other way,” he said as they stopped at a covered wagon. He plucked a sack from the driver’s seat and led Cinderella on toward the front of the house. “What’s

Patton’s store. A grinning man would halt the wagon with an upraised arm but it would not halt. When he noticed the quiltcovered cargo the wagon transported, he called, What you got there, Sandy? The driver turned and spat and wiped his mouth and glanced back briefly but he didn’t stay the wagon. Dead folks, he said.

The driver of the wagon slowed down his mules, and a shrill-voiced woman called out: “He that cometh in vanity departeth in darkness!” Miss Maudie answered: “A merry heart maketh a cheerful countenance!

despite the appearance of many new human jobs, we might nevertheless witness the rise of a new ‘useless’ class. We might actually get the worst of both worlds, suffering simultaneously from high unemployment and a shortage of skilled labour. Many people might share the fate not of nineteenth-century wagon drivers – who switched to driving taxis – but of nineteenth-century horses, who were increasingly pushed out of the job market altogether.15

One day on the plains he had an angry dispute with one of his wagon-drivers, and both drew their revolvers. But the driver was the quicker artist, and had his weapon cocked first. So Slade said it was a pity to waste life on so small a matter, and proposed that the pistols be thrown on the ground and the quarrel settled by a fist-fight. The unsuspected driver agreed, and threw down his pistol-whereupon Slade laughed at his simplicity, and shot him dead!

a simple wagon-driver stops his cart at the side of the road to speak the Hebrew alphabet, one letter at a time. 'God,' he cries out, 'I don't know the prayers, so I am sending you the alphabet. You must know the prayers. Make them up out of the letters I am sending.

Clara Barton was a famous Civil War nurse. When she began nursing, she used her own money for her supplies. She drove a horse-drawn “ambulance” right onto the battlefield to help save wounded soldiers. For this reason she became known as the “Angel of the Battlefield.” Jack put the book away. Then he hurried to Annie. He looked at the woman sitting in the driver’s seat of the wagon. She doesn’t look like an angel, Jack thought. The woman was very small. She had a plain, serious face and dark hair pulled back in a bun. She wore a long black skirt and a black jacket. In

Months later, when I rarely saw the Angels, I still had the legacy of the big machine -- four hundred pounds of chrome and deep red noise to take out on the Coast Highway and cut loose at three in the morning, when all the cops were lurking over on 101. My first crash had wrecked the bike completely and it took several months to have it rebuilt. After that I decided to ride it differently: I would stop pushing my luck on curves, always wear a helmet and try to keep within range of the nearest speed limit ... my insurance had already been canceled and my driver's license was hanging by a thread. So it was always at night, like a werewolf, that I would take the thing out for an honest run down the coast. I would start in Golden Gate Park, thinking only to run a few long curves to clear my head ... but in a matter of minutes I'd be out at the beach with the sound of the engine in my ears, the surf booming up on the sea wall and a fine empty road stretching all the way down to Santa Cruz ... not even a gas station in the whole seventy miles; the only public light along the way is an all-night diner down around Rockaway Beach. There was no helmet on those nights, no speed limit, and no cooling it down on the curves. The momentary freedom of the park was like the one unlucky drink that shoves a wavering alcoholic off the wagon. I would come out of the park near the soccer field and pause for a moment at the stop sign, wondering if I knew anyone parked out there on the midnight humping strip.

All at once I was standing at our front window one day, looking down at the driveway, and Natalie was buckling the baby into the car. This was a Volvo wagon her parents had given us when Opal was born. And I watched her shut the passenger door and walk around to the driver’s side, and I said to myself, ‘Why, great God in heaven! I seem to have married one of those station wagon mommies!’ So we got divorced.

You join your creations as one of the created but there is no difference between you and your creations. The separation is illusion. You are the observer and the observed. The author and the character. The seed and the sapling. The captain and the ship. The wagon and the driver. The music and the composer. The dream and reality. You occupy infinite levels of yourself in worlds of thought and matter, experiencing your own awareness, beyond understanding or even description.

For the first few weeks in Santa Fe, Oppenheimer and his key staff worked out of the office at 109 East Palace Avenue in the early mornings and made daily trips up to Los Alamos to inspect the progress of the construction. "The laboratories at the site were in a sketchy state, but that did not deter the workers," Dorothy wrote of those hectic early days. "In the morning buses, consisting of station wagons, sedans, or trucks, would leave 109 and pick up the men at the ranches and take them up the Hill. Occasionally, a driver would forget to stop at one or another of the ranches and the stranded and frustrated scientists would call in a white heat.

Eager to reestablish their brand as the “King of Beers,” the company’s board of directors had authorized August Jr., the superintendent of the brewery, to buy several teams of Clydesdale draft horses “for advertising purposes.” Gussie, as he was called, purchased sixteen of the massive 2,000-pound animals for $21,000 at the Kansas City stockyards. He also found two wooden wagons from back in the days when the company employed eight hundred teams of horses to deliver its beer, and set about having them restored to the exacting standards of his late grandfather, brewery founder Adolphus Busch, who liked to conduct weekly inspections from a viewing stand, with his son August at his side as all the drivers passed in parade, hoping to win the $25 prize for the best-kept team and wagon.

Ford and General Motors executives made a big deal of the occasion by driving to Washington in their hybrid vehicles. Mulally of Ford came in an Escape SUV hybrid. Wagoner of General Motors was chauffeured in a Chevy Malibu hybrid. Poor Bob Nardelli of Chrysler. The pickings were slim. Chrysler, known more for the styling of it's bodies than for its technological savvy, sent Nardelli to Washington in an Aspen Hybrid SUV, about the only "green" thing Chrysler had to offer. Problem is, it was a terrible vehicle and unreliable. Despite being partially powered by a battery, the Aspen ran on a V-8 Hemi and got less than twenty miles to the gallon. The charging system was flawed and difficult to service. His driver was Mike Carlisle, the homicide detective who had retired from the Detroit Police Department just a month earlier. The media was invited to snap bon voyage photographs in Detroit, which they dutifully filed. What they did not see -and what Carlisle later told me- was that there were two engineers tailing Nardelli at a discreet three-mile buffer, carrying laptops and a trunk full of tolls in case the Aspen broke down. Even Chrysler didn't trust their products.

head no longer weeps and she seems to never tire, while Omeir has to rest every hour or so, fatigue sunk into his marrow, and sometimes as he walks he hears the creak of the wagons and the bellowing of animals, and senses Moonlight and Tree beside him, huge and docile beneath the beam of their yoke. By their fourth morning together, they grow dangerously hungry. Even the girl stumbles every few steps and he knows they cannot go much farther without food. At midday he spies dust rising behind them and they crouch off the road in a little brake of thorns and wait. First come two banner men, blades knocking against their saddles, the very image of conquerors returning. Then drivers with pack camels loaded with plunder: rolled carpets, bulging sacks, a torn Greek ensign. Behind the camels in loose double-file through the dust march twenty bound women and girls. One howls with grief while the others shuffle in silence, their hair uncovered, and their faces betray a wretchedness that makes Omeir look away. Behind the women a rawboned ox pulls a wagon crowded with marble statuary: the torsos of angels; a robed and curly headed philosopher with his nose flaked off; a single enormous

It may interest the reader to know how they “put horses to” on the continent. The man stands up the horses on each side of the thing that projects from the front end of the wagon, and then throws the tangled mess of gear forward through a ring, and hauls it aft, and passes the other thing through the other ring and hauls it aft on the other side of the other horse, opposite to the first one, after crossing them and bringing the loose end back, and then buckles the other thing underneath the horse, and takes another thing and wraps it around the thing I spoke of before, and puts another thing over each horse’s head, with broad flappers to it to keep the dust out of his eyes, and puts the iron thing in his mouth for him to grit his teeth on, uphill, and brings the ends of these things aft over his back, after buckling another one around under his neck to hold his head up, and hitching another thing on a thing that goes over his shoulders to keep his head up when he is climbing a hill, and then takes the slack of the thing which I mentioned a while ago, and fetches it aft and makes it fast to the thing that pulls the wagon, and hands the other things up to the driver to steer with. I never have buckled up a horse myself, but I do not think we do it that way.

In the nineteen sixties and seventies, there were people in all the democratic countries who didn’t have any real power, and they started going to the people who did have all the power and saying, “All these principles of equality you’ve been talking about since the French Revolution are very nice, but you don’t seem to be taking them very seriously. You’re all hypocrites, actually. So we’re going to make you take those principles seriously.” And they held demonstrations and bus rides, and occupied buildings, and it was very embarrassing for the people in power, because the other people had such a good argument, and anyone who listened seriously had to agree with them. ‘Feminism was working, and the civil rights movement was working, and all the other social justice movements were getting more and more support. So, in the nineteen eighties, the CIA—’ she turned to Keith and explained cheerfully, ‘this is where X-Files Theory comes into it – hired some really clever linguists to invent a secret weapon: an incredibly complicated way of talking about politics that didn’t actually make any sense, but which spread through all the universities in the world, because it sounded so impressive. And at first, the people who talked like this just hitched their wagon to the social justice movements, and everyone else let them come along for the ride, because they seemed harmless. But then they climbed on board the peace train and threw out the driver. ‘So instead of going to the people in power and saying, “How about upholding the universal principles you claim to believe in?” the people in the social justice movements ended up saying things like “My truth narrative is in competition with your truth narrative!” And the people in power replied, “Woe is me! You’ve thrown me in the briar patch!” And everyone else said, “Who are these idiots? Why should we trust them, when they can’t even speak properly?” And the CIA were happy. And the people in power were happy. And the secret weapon lived on in the universities for years and years, because everyone who’d played a part in the conspiracy was too embarrassed to admit what they’d done.

Oh, by the way, security told me earlier that some guy showed up, claiming to be your assistant.” “Already? What time is it?” “It’s almost one o’clock,” he says. “Are you telling me you actually hired someone?” My heart drops. I shove past Cliff, ignoring him as he calls for me, wanting his question answered. I head straight for security, spotting Jack standing along the side with a guard, looking somewhere between disturbed and amused. “Strangest shit I’ve ever witnessed in Jersey,” Jack says, looking me over. “And that’s saying something, because I once saw a chimpanzee roller skating, and that was weird as fuck.” “I’m going to take that as a compliment, even though I know it isn’t one,” I say, grabbing his arm and making him follow me. It’s about a two-and-a-half hour drive to Bennett Landing, but I barely have two hours. “Please tell me you drove.” Before he can respond, I hear Cliff shouting as he follows. “Johnny! Where are you going?” “Oh, buddy.” Jack glances behind us at Cliff. “Am I your getaway driver?” “Something like that,” I say. “You ever play Grand Theft Auto?” “Every fucking day, man.” “Good,” I say, continuing to walk, despite Cliff attempting to catch up. “If you can get me where I need to be, there will be one hell of a reward in it for you.” His eyes light up as he pulls out a set of car keys. “Mission accepted.” There’s a crowd gathered around set. They figured out we’re here. They know we’re wrapping today. I scan the area, looking for a way around them. “Where’d you park?” I ask, hoping it’s anywhere but right across the street. “Right across the street,” he says. Fuck. I’m going to have to go through the crowd. “You sure you, uh, don’t want to change?” Jack asks, his eyes flickering to me, conflicted. “No time for that.” The crowd spots me, and they start going crazy, making Cliff yell louder to get my attention, but I don’t stop. I slip off of set, past the metal barricades and right into the street, as security tries to keep the crowd back, but it’s a losing game. So we run, and I follow Jack to an old station wagon, the tan paint faded. “This is what you drive?” “Not all of us grew up with trust funds,” he says, slapping his hand against the rusted hood. “This was my inheritance.” “Not judging,” I say, pausing beside it. “It’s just all very ‘70s suburban housewife.” “That sounds like judgment, asshole.” I open the passenger door to get in the car when Cliff catches up, slightly out of breath from running. “What are you doing, Johnny? You’re leaving?” “I told you I had somewhere to be.” “This is ridiculous,” he says, anger edging his voice. “You need to sort out your priorities.” “That’s a damn good idea,” I say. “Consider this my notice.” “Your notice?” “I’m taking a break,” I say. “From you. From this. From all of it.” “You’re making a big mistake.” “You think so?” I ask, looking him right in the face. “Because I think the mistake I made was trusting you.” I get in the car, slamming the door, leaving Cliff standing on the sidewalk, fuming. Jack starts the engine, cutting his eyes at me. “So, where to? The unemployment office?” “Home,” I say, “and I need to get there as soon as possible, because somebody is waiting for me, and I can't disappoint her.

beautiful granddaughter at his side, guarding it like a pair of faithful watchdogs. Although they were all nearly at the end of their tether, Jim roused the camp again before dawn. Using a span of oxen, and with much shouting and cracking of long whips, they heaved the overturned wagon back on to its wheels. The robust vehicle had suffered little damage, and within a few hours they had repacked its scattered load. Jim knew that they must leave the battlefield at once. In the heat of the sun the corpses would very soon putrefy, and, with the stench of their rotting, sickness and disease would come. At his orders they inspanned every other wagon in the train. Then Smallboy and the other drivers fired the long whips and the oxen trundled the vehicles out of the gruesome laager and into the open grassland. They set up camp that evening among the deserted thatched huts of the Nguni town, surrounded by the vast herds of humpbacked cattle, with the piles of ivory securely enclosed within the wagon laager. The next morning, after breakfast, Jim summoned all his men to the indaba. He wanted to explain to them his future plans, and to tell them where he would lead them next. First he asked Tegwane to explain how the Nguni used their cattle to carry the ivory when they were on the march. ‘Tell us how they place the loads, and secure them to the backs of the animals,’ Jim ordered. ‘That I do not know,’ Tegwane admitted. ‘I have only watched their advance from afar.’ ‘Smallboy will be able to work out the harness for himself,’ Jim decided, ‘but it would have been better to use a method to which the cattle are accustomed.’ Then he turned to the small group of herd-boys and said, ‘Can you men’ – they liked to be called men and they had earned the right at the barricades – ‘can you men take care of so many?’ They considered the vast herds of cattle that were scattered down the full length of the valley. ‘They are not so very many,’ said the eldest, who was the spokesman. ‘We can herd many more than that,’ said another. ‘We have vanquished the Nguni in battle,’ squeaked Izeze, smallest and cheekiest of the boys, his voice not yet broken. ‘We can take care of their cattle, and their women also, when we capture them.

the horses to the oak freight wagon, and McCloskey helped him load, distributing the weight evenly in the wagon. When they were done, Johnny got a tarpaulin, and as he'd done many times, he threw it over the load and tucked it in carefully to keep out any rain he might encounter. Finally he'd strapped it all down tight with ropes. McCloskey had looked over the load and said, "Good job, Johnny. You sure you can do this run by yourself?" He said, "I'm sure I'll be fine, Fleet. It's just 19 miles over there and mostly flat. I won't have to use the brakes at all."   "Be sure though and set the brake when you stop." Johnny nodded, and Fleet asked, "You got your book?" Nodding and smiling, Johnny said, "Yessir, got it," as he drove the wagon out of the warehouse yard, headed west to Forest City, which was often referred to as "Irish City" because it had been settled by Irishmen. The folks there were still mostly Irish, which was evident from the heavy Irish lilt to the speech of many of the folks living there. McCloskey's face showed tiny creases of worry as he watched Johnny drive off. He was a good boy, but he was still a boy being asked to do a man's job. In his year on the job, Johnny had grown to be a fine young man. He was only a few inches short of six feet, and he'd added a lot of muscle. He could lift as much as most of the teamsters. Even so, McCloskey worried about sending the boy out alone, but he'd had no choice in the matter. He'd promised the load would reach Forest City by tomorrow morning. Johnny had a brand-new Spencer repeating rifle leaning against his leg. Peter Sarpy, the owner, had used his contacts back east and gotten a shipment of the new rifles. Now, with his four drivers armed with repeating rifles, Sarpy worried a little less about being robbed. But the rifle made Johnny worry more because if outlaws did hit a wagon, they'd kill the driver if he lifted a rifle. Johnny had helped take a load to Forest City with old Monk Beeson two weeks before, and they hadn't had any problems, and he didn't expect any problems with today's load. But during that trip, Beeson had told Johnny about an outlaw gang living a few miles north of Forest City led by a man the Irish called Ranger Jones who collected tribute from prospective

To supply a column of this size, in the depth of winter, was a problem demanding most careful consideration. There was a train of one hundred and sixty-eight wagons and seven ambulances, with two hundred and nineteen drivers and attendants; and a pack-train of four hundred mules cared for by sixty-five expert packers, to follow after the cavalry whenever it should cut loose from the main body. No finer, cleaner-cut expedition was ever known in the annals of the Regular Army.

Her limbs function, and she finds this miraculous when she dwells on it. In fact, she finds plenty of things miraculous. Forcefully, she summons her best memories. That time on a red-eye bus when the driver used the intercom to contemplate, in campfire baritone, the wonder of his grandchildren, the way they validated his life as time well spent. As he lulled the passengers with stories, someone began to pass around a Tupperware of sliced watermelon, and a drunk man offered to share the miniature bottles of whiskey from his bag, and Joan felt such overwhelming affection for her species, she feared she would sacrifice herself to save it. A bad summer storm. Green sky, tornado warning, violent winds. Joan was downtown, leaving work early, briskly walking toward the parking garage where her station wagon waited. On the opposite end of the sidewalk, a large woman in her sixties collapsed. Immediately, two people rushed to the woman's side, gingerly tending to her, touching her shoulders and face, speaking to her as though she were their mother -- a cherished one -- and Joan understood that human tenderness was not to be mocked. It was the last real thing. Dining alone on a blustery Easter night at the only Chinese restaurant in town. When she asked for the check, the waiter said, "It just started to rain. You're welcome to stay a little longer, if you want." Miraculous. Joan recalls the existence of dogs, craft stores, painkillers, the public library. Cream ribboning through coffee. The scent of the lilacs near her childhood home. Brown sugar on a summer strawberry. Her father's recovery from the tyranny of multigenerational alcoholism. The imperfect but true repossession of his life. The euphoria of the first warmth after winter, the first easy breath after a cold, the return of one's appetite after an anxiety attack. Joan has much to be happy about. She thinks: I am happy, you are happy, we are happy. These thoughts -- how she can force herself to have them. Miraculous.

Then came on a thaw for three or four days, with really warm weather, when everything melted; when the streams burst their bonds; when the earth became soft until it seemed to have no bottom and mud reigned supreme. It was everywhere; the roads were almost impassable and it was difficult to haul the rations to camp from the station. A detail of seventy-five was made from the Seventeenth to assist the brigade wagons back to camp. It was a cheerless task. The heavy army wagons came toiling laboriously along; many became stalled in the mud, the wheels sunken below the hubs, horses straining, the drivers cursing and lashing the poor animals, while a dozen men pushed at each wheel, all and everything covered with the liquid mire; such was December in Virginia. The Christmas of 1862 was cheerless indeed; the weather was frightful, and a heavy snowstorm covered everything a foot deep. Each soldier attempted to get a dinner in honor of the day, and those to whom boxes had been sent succeeded to a most respectable degree, but those unfortunates whose homes were outside the lines had nothing whatever delectable partaking of the nature of Christmas. Well! it would have puzzled [anyone] to furnish a holiday dinner out of a pound of fat pork, six crackers, and a quarter of a pound of dried apples. We all had apple dumplings that day, which with sorghum molasses were not to be despised. Some of the men became decidedly hilarious, and then again some did not; not because they had joined the temperance society nor because they were opposed to the use of intoxicating liquors, but because not a soul invited them to step up and partake. One mess in the Seventeenth did not get so much as a smell during the whole of the holidays; and a dry, dismal old time it proved. We read in the Richmond papers of the thousands and thousands of boxes that had been passed en route to the army, sent by the ladies of Richmond and other cities, but few found their way to us. The greater part of them were for the troops from the far South who were too distant from their homes to receive anything from their own families. The Virginians were supposed to have been cared for by their own relatives and friends; but some of them were not, as we all know.

Fat men in tank tops drank beer while the women and children streamed back and forth between the tables and their battered station wagons, bringing ice chests and boxes of potato chips and marshmallows. A little dog was doing circles around the kids' legs. The far curb of the turnout lane was lined with semis, the cabs dark and the drivers inside sleeping or shaving or eating, staring at the horizon and thinking whatever it is truckers think.

The traffic was heavy, carriages, cabs, wagons, carts of every description passing by, splashing the water out of the gutters, wheels hissing on the wet road, horses dripping, sodden hides dark. Drivers sat hunched with collars up and hats down in a futile attempt to keep the cold rain from running down their necks, hands clenched on the reins.

The two left wheels of Tara and Abelard’s carriage lurched off the ground as the driver swung them into the narrow gap between a large driverless wagon and a mounted courier. Tara scrambled to the elevated side of the passenger cabin, eyes wide, and shot an angry look at Abelard when he chortled. The airborne wheels returned to the cobblestones with a bone-jarring thud. Tara’s teeth clapped together so hard her jaw ached. “Is our driver insane?” He brought one finger to his lips. “Don’t let him hear you. Cabbies in Alt Coulumb are touchy, with reason. The Guild has zero tolerance for accidents.” “They fire you if you have a wreck?” “It involves fire, yes. Trust me, there’s no safer place on the road in Alt Coulumb than in a cab.” “Especially when there are cabs on the road,” she noted as they cut off a one-horse hatchback, which careened out of control into a delivery wagon.

I’m sorry for taking so long.” Tori straightened her shoulders as if readying herself for battle, then traipsed down the steps to the street. “I had a few last-minute details to see to.” Ben hurried around the back of the wagon to meet her and had opened his mouth to offer assurances that the delay was no problem when Lewis popped his head up. “About time! Sheesh, Ma. You took for-ev-er.” Ben cast a warning glance at the boy. “I’m sure whatever your ma was doing was important.” He turned back to Tori and gave her his most charming grin. “She’s worth waiting on.” Her lips tightened at that, but into a shape that looked more like disapproval than appreciation of a compliment. So much for his charm. “Yes, well . . . I suggest we delay no longer.” Tori lengthened her stride, giving him no chance to assist her into the wagon. She scrambled up the wheel spokes and onto the bench before he could even think about fitting his hands to her waist and hoisting her up. Unfortunate, that. Ben shrugged off his disappointment and moved forward to give his team a final check before climbing into the driver’s seat. Emma handed a large basket up to Tori and wished her farewell while Grace Mallory waved from behind the store railing. As he clucked to his Shires and set the wagon in motion, Ben grinned to himself. One of the best parts of this plan to call on area homesteaders was the sheer number of times they’d be required to enter and exit the wagon. Tori might have escaped him this time, but he’d have a couple dozen more chances to wrap his fingers around her slender waist.

I walked up to one man, lying on his side, and noticed too late that he was beyond talking ever again. The distance from the hospital to the morgue is only a few yards, so the old nuns don’t have far to push the gurneys. In the morgue, the bodies are piled haphazardly, to no particular scheme or order. The air conditioning and coolers have broken down, and the smell of rot is so strong it chases away all other living things, except a man called Presnel, who has no money and family. He squats in the dirt of the courtyard, waiting to die. “Crazy man,” Daniel explains, but not unkindly. The man is truly dying, and waits “here, to be expedient. Hearses—really station wagons with the windows painted black—wait near the hospital. The people in the morgue are the ones no one wants, so hearse drivers wait near the front entrance of the hospital for a fresh body. “One will be ready soon. No problem,” a driver says. He is eating a Popsicle.

Oh, are you calling the cops, bitch? Maggie says, Yeah, I actually am! There is a counterprotest that same day. “West Fargo for Knodel.” Maggie watches it on television. It’s led by eight of Aaron Knodel’s current students. Most are female. They play sports and their Facebook profile pictures are assertive and tongue ridden. They wear short shorts and their legs are tan. They hold signs that say, Best teacher we’ve ever had #WF4Knodel Not Guilty #WF4Knodel Passing drivers slow and honk or speed up and scream. Cheers and sunshine. Now the Knodel family station wagon drives past. A photo is snapped. Marie is in the passenger seat, her hair up like a mom’s, her skin considerably brighter than it was in the courthouse, her mouth open like it’s whooping, Yeah! A boy is in the seat behind her, thumbs-upping out the open window, with a smaller boy beside him, looking confused. And Aaron is in the driver’s seat with a little white dog pressed between his rib cage and the steering wheel. On his face is a look of slightly embarrassed yet utterly exultant pride, like a sun over the funeral of an enemy.

driver’s side window. I squinted at the words. It said Don’t Touch! Alarm System Installed. Billy Bob leaned over, cupped his hand, and whispered into my ear, “There’s no alarm system.” I smiled. Later that day, a small hatchback pulled up beside Billy Bob’s station wagon. A Chinese guy came bouncing out of it, running up to my dad and shaking his hand furiously. He told him he was a friend of Uncle Ming’s and asked if he could stay here for the night. “Any friend of Ming’s is a friend of mine.” My dad smiled.

Saddle horses lined the hitching-rails as far as Brite could see. Canvas-covered wagons, chuck-wagons, buckboards, vehicles of all Western types, stood outside the saddle horses. And up one side and down the other a procession ambled in the dust. On the wide sidewalk a throng of booted, belted, spurred men wended their way up or down. The saloons roared. Black-sombreroed, pale-faced, tight-lipped men stood beside the wide portals of the gaming-dens. Beautiful wrecks of womanhood, girls with havoc in their faces and the look of birds of prey in their eyes, waited in bare-armed splendor to be accosted. Laughter without mirth ran down the walk. The stores were full. Cowboys in twos and threes and sixes trooped by, young, lithe, keen of eye, bold of aspect, gay and reckless. Hundreds of cowboys passed Brite in that long block from the hotel to the intersecting street. And every boy gave him a pang. These were the toll of the trail and of Dodge. It might have been the march of empire, the tragedy of progress, but it was heinous to Brite. He would never send another boy to his death.

He was walking over toward the West Side, aimlessly at first, and then at times with the longing to do something to save those mistaken men from themselves forming itself into a purpose. Was not that what she meant when she bewailed her woman's helplessness? She must have wished him to try if he, being a man, could not do something; or if she did not, still he would try, and if she heard of it she would recall what she had said and would be glad he had understood her so. Thinking of her pleasure in what he was going to do, he forgot almost what it was; but when he came to a street-car track he remembered it, and looked up and down to see if there were any turbulent gathering of men whom he might mingle with and help to keep from violence. He saw none anywhere; and then suddenly, as if at the same moment, for in his exalted mood all events had a dream-like simultaneity, he stood at the corner of an avenue, and in the middle of it, a little way off, was a street-car, and around the car a tumult of shouting, cursing, struggling men. The driver was lashing his horses forward, and a policeman was at their heads, with the conductor, pulling them; stones, clubs, brickbats hailed upon the car, the horses, the men trying to move them. The mob closed upon them in a body, and then a patrol-wagon whirled up from the other side, and a squad of policemen leaped out and began to club the rioters. Conrad could see how they struck them under the rims of their hats; the blows on their skulls sounded as if they had fallen on stone; the rioters ran in all directions. One of the officers rushed up toward the corner where Conrad stood, and then he saw at his side a tall, old man, with a long, white beard, who was calling out at the policemen: "Ah, yes! Glup the strikerss—gif it to them! Why don't you co and glup the bresidents that insoalt your lawss, and gick your Boart of Arpidration out-of-toors? Glup the strikerss—they cot no friendts! They cot no money to pribe you, to dreat you!" The officer lifted his club, and the old man threw his left arm up to shield his head. Conrad recognized Lindau, and now he saw the empty sleeve dangle in the air over the stump of his wrist. He heard a shot in that turmoil beside the car, and something seemed to strike him in the breast. He was going to say to the policeman: "Don't strike him! He's an old soldier! You see he has no hand!" but he could not speak, he could not move his tongue. The policeman stood there; he saw his face: it was not bad, not cruel; it was like the face of a statue, fixed, perdurable—a mere image of irresponsible and involuntary authority. Then Conrad fell forward, pierced through the heart by that shot fired from the car. March heard the shot as he scrambled out of his car, and at the same moment he saw Lindau drop under the club of the policeman, who left him where he fell and joined the rest of the squad in pursuing the rioters. The fighting round the car in the avenue ceased; the driver whipped his horses into a gallop, and the place was left empty. March would have liked to run; he thought how his wife had implored him to keep away from the rioting; but he could not have left Lindau lying there if he would. Something stronger than his will drew him to the spot, and there he saw Conrad, dead beside the old man.

Narcissi and Daffodils live for generations. I know some double yellow Daffodils growing in my great-grandfather’s garden, that were planted over seventy years ago. The place was[153] sold and the house burned about thirty years since, and all this time has been entirely neglected. Some one told me that Daffodils and Narcissi still bloomed there bravely in the grass. With a cousin, one lovely day last spring, I took the train out to this old place and there found quantities of the dainty yellow flowers. We had come unprovided with any gardening implements, having nothing of the kind in town, and brought only a basket for the spoils, and a steel table-knife. We quickly found the knife of no avail, so borrowed a sadly broken coal-shovel from a tumble-down sort of a man who stood gazing at us from the door of a tumble-down house. The roots of the Daffodils were very deep, and neither of us could use a spade, so the driver of the ramshackle wagon taken at the station was pressed into service. Handling of shovel or spade was evidently an unknown art to him. The Daffodil roots were nearly a foot deep, but we finally got them, several hundreds of them, all we could[154] carry. The driver seemed to think us somewhat mad and said “Them’s only some kind of weed,” but when I told him the original bulbs from which all these had come were planted by my great-grandmother and her daughter, and that I wanted to carry some away, to plant in my own garden, he became interested and dug with all his heart. The bulbs were in solid clumps a foot across and had to be pulled apart and separated. They were the old Double Yellow Daffodil and a very large double white variety, the edges of the petals faintly tinged with yellow and delightfully fragrant. My share of the spoils is now thriving in my garden. By the process of division every three years, these Daffodils can be made to yield indefinitely, and perhaps some great-grandchild of my own may gather their blossoms.

Westsylvania. Flat ground had never looked so good. Some of those wagons later took a wrong turn and clomped across a charming covered bridge. Thank the good Lord Almighty, those drivers thought. Nice bridge like that, there must be a town ahead. And there was – Five Rocks. It offered one of everything

This imaginary colour film of the past would need to have a soundtrack too, which would record the crunch and crackle of iron tyres on a macadam road, the sudden hush as the wagon turned off into a field, leaving just the creak of the wooden framework, and the clack of the hubs against the axletrees, or the swish of hooves and wheels through stubble. It would record also the voice of the driver as he spoke to the horses, a murmur of words which we should not recognize as words today, an earthy form of plainsong, as he guided the team over ruts, humps and hollows, through the twists and turns of the slow trek from field to barn.

Ildiko snarled her frustration into the gag. What she wouldn’t give at this moment to be Anhuset. The Kai woman would have already chewed her way through the gag with those formidable Kai teeth, broken the knots in her ropes, kicked her way out of the wagon, killed the driver, and driven the wagon back home by herself.

The Denver construction company of J. M. O’Rourke built the seawall in sixty-foot sections, using massive and sophisticated equipment and techniques never seen before in Texas. Giant four-foot-square blocks of granite and carloads of gravel came by rail from Granite Mountain west of Austin. Forty-two-foot pilings were shipped from the forests of East Texas. Four-horse wagons delivered the materials to the Little Susie line at 15th and Avenue N, and from there they were hauled on specially constructed tracks to the excavation along the beach where the wall would eventually sit. Steam-powered pile drivers that looked like oil derricks hammered the pilings down into the clay stratum, and work crews covered the pilings with foot-thick planking that became the base for the wall. Once the materials started