on, and was now lying by the side of the road with its head in
the mud, wrong end to, bottom side up, roasting itself brown, steaming
itself yellow, and smoking itself black, like an insane cooking-stove
turned out-doors for misbehavior.

[Illustration]

Overdale got out of the sand without assistance, and, save a black eye,
and a peck or two of sand and gravel in his hair, was none the worse for
the accident. Wagstaff crawled out of the frog pond, looking as dripping
and juicy as a he-mermaid; while Dennis, though unconscious of any
painful hurt, had sustained so serious a fracture of his wooden leg,
that he found it necessary to splice it with an ironwood sapling before
he could navigate.

It being discovered that the danger was over, and that there was nothing
more to fear, the ladies, as in duty bound, began to faint; one old
lady fainted, and fell near the engine; happening, however, to sit down
in a puddle of hot water, she got up quicker than she went down; young
lady, rather pretty, fainted and fell into the arms of four or five
gentlemen who were waiting to receive her; another young lady fainted,
and didn't fall into anybody's arms, being cross-eyed and having a wart
on her nose; maiden lady, ancient and fat, got near a good-looking man
with a big moustache, and giving notice of her intention by a
premonitory squall, shut her eyes, and fell towards moustache; she had
better, however, have kept her eyes open, for moustache, seeing her
coming, and making a hasty estimate of her probable weight, stepped
aside, and the gentle creature landed in a clump of Canada thistles,
whence she speedily recovered herself, and looked fiery indignation at
moustache, who bore it like a martyr; young lady in pantalets and curls
tried it, but, being inexperienced, and not having taken the precaution
to pick out a soft place to fall, in case there didn't anybody catch
her, she bumped her head on a stone, and got up with a black eye;
jealous married lady, seeing her husband endeavoring to resuscitate a
plump-looking miss, immediately extemporized a faint herself, and fell
directly across the young miss aforesaid, contriving as she descended,
to break her husband's spectacles by a malicious dig with her elbow; in
fact the ladies all fainted at least once apiece, and those who received
the most attention had an extra spasm or two before their final
recovery, while the vicious old maids whom nobody cared for, invariably
fell near th