Part 18 (1/2)

He would ask Dominie Black to let him take Jenny home.

What could be more sensible and straightforward than such a plan?

Of course the good old Schoolmaster gave Andrew the desired permission, and everything ended happily. But the best thing about the whole affair was the lesson that young Scotch boy learned that day.

And the lesson was this: when we are puzzling our brains with plans to help ourselves out of our troubles, let us always stop a moment in our planning, and try to think if there is not some simple way out of the difficulty, which shall be in every respect _perfectly right_. If we do that we shall probably find the way, and also find it much more satisfactory as well as easier than any of our ingenious and elaborate plans.

THE WILD a.s.s.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WILD a.s.sES.]

If there is any animal in the whole world that receives worse treatment or is held in less esteem than the ordinary Jacka.s.s, I am very sorry for it.

With the exception of a few warm countries, where this animal grows to a large size, and is highly valued, the Jacka.s.s or Donkey is everywhere considered a stupid beast, a lazy beast, an obstinate beast, and very often a vicious beast. To liken any one to a Jacka.s.s is to use very strong language.

In many cases, this character of the Donkey (with the exception of the stupidity, for very few Donkeys are stupid, although they try to seem so) is correct, but nevertheless it is doubtful if the animal is much to blame for it. There is every reason to believe that the dullness and laziness of the Donkey is owing entirely to his a.s.sociation with man.

For proof of this a.s.sertion, we have but to consider the a.s.s in his natural state.

There can be no reasonable doubt but that the domestic a.s.s is descended from the Wild a.s.s of Asia and Africa, for the two animals are so much alike that it would be impossible, by the eye alone, to distinguish the one from the other.

But, except in appearance, they differ very much. The tame a.s.s is gentle, and generally fond of the society of man; the wild a.s.s is one of the shyest creatures in the world; even when caught it is almost impossible to tame him. The tame a.s.s is slow, plodding, dull, and lazy; the wild a.s.s is as swift as a race-horse and as wild as a Deer.

The best mounted hors.e.m.e.n can seldom approach him, and it is generally necessary to send a rifle-ball after him, if he is wanted very much.

His flesh is considered a great delicacy, which is another difference between him and the tame animal.

If any of you were by accident to get near enough to a wild a.s.s to observe him closely, you would be very apt to suppose him to be one of those long-eared fellows which must be beaten and stoned and punched with sticks, if you want to get them into the least bit of a trot, and which always want to stop by the roadside, if they see so much as a cabbage-leaf or a tempting thistle.

But you would find yourself greatly mistaken and astonished when, as soon as this wild creature discovered your presence, he went das.h.i.+ng away, bounding over the gullies and brooks, clipping it over the rocks, scudding over the plains, and disappearing in the distance like a runaway cannon-ball.

And yet if some of these fleet and spirited animals should be captured, and they and their descendants for several generations should be exposed to all sorts of privations and hards.h.i.+ps; worked hard as soon as their spirits were broken, fed on mean food and very little of it; beaten, kicked, and abused; exposed to cold climates, to which their nature does not suit them, and treated in every way as our Jacka.s.ses are generally treated, they would soon become as slow, poky, and dull as any Donkey you ever saw.

If we have nothing else, it is very well to have a good ancestry, and no n.o.bleman in Europe is proportionately as well descended as the Jacka.s.s.

ANCIENT RIDING.

There are a great many different methods by which we can take a ride.

When we are very young we are generally very well pleased with what most boys and girls call ”piggy-back” riding, and when we get older we delight in horses and carriages, and some of us even take pleasure in the motion of railroad cars.

Other methods are not so pleasant. Persons who have tried it say that riding a Camel, a little Donkey, or a rail, is exceedingly disagreeable until you are used to it, and there are various other styles of progression which are not nearly so comfortable as walking.

[Ill.u.s.tration]