Australian Tales - Setis

at cousin Goodwin's, the widow made Goliah promise not to speak a
word to Jacky, and to let her drive. But the donkey evidently knew that
his late tormentor was behind him, for he trotted along like a butcher's
cob. If he showed the slightest symptom of relaxing his speed, Goliah
would merely cough — he did not speak — and Jacky's tail seemed
electrified in a moment, and he began to gallop till the widow pulled him
into a trot again.
* * * * *
That extraordinary occurrence served for many an evening's chat
around the firesides of the wonder-stricken villagers. Some of the
unsophisticated natives still dispute about the human identity of the
roaring donkey driver, and others shudder to this day at the bare mention
of Australia; for they imagine that Goliah Trump, as he flew through
their streets in the widow's gig, is a fair specimen of the inhabitants of
this famous continent, consequently they infer that we are an awfully fast
and furious nation.
Widow Blunt has not forgotten her exciting ride, and the recollection
of it has made her laugh away many a melancholy moment. In her
subsequent letters to her son Sam, she has often alluded to the comical
affair, and has told over and over again how that funny Mr. Trump
frightened her poor old donkey to death; for he died three years
afterwards.
But Jacky never forgot the lesson to the last day he dragged the gig;
and if it were not a perfect cure for his laziness, it was a wonderful
corrective. Ever after that, if he showed symptoms of his old habits
returning, it was only necessary for the widow to shout through her eartrumpet
“Ods dampers and doughboys!” when Jacky's tail would begin to
work like a pump-handle — for the bare idea of those Australian edibles
was as terrifying to him as bombshells. But if his mistress at the same
time put on her clogs and made a clatter on the bottom of the gig, his ears
would fall flat aback, and his tail would point to the moon, and off he
would gallop as though he thought Goliah had come again; for of course
his stupid head did not know that that worthy colonist had returned to the
other side of the world.
* * * * *
I am not quite sure that Goliah's “moral suasion” would be effective on
lazy asses of another sort, and I fear he would be impatiently disposed to
substitute material “dampers and doughboys,” and to aim them at the
heads of his subjects, as boys apply snowballs, which of course would
not be commendable. I think, however, that he might make a trial of his