"Yes, sah," he answered; and then, looking toward the stable, he shouted
in a peremptory voice, "Do about, there! Do about!"
"What does that mean?" said I. "Hurry up?"
"Yes, sah, that's it. 'Tain't everybody that wants to be hurried up; so
we tells 'em, 'Do about!'"
Half a minute afterwards two very neatly dressed little colored boys
stepped upon the rear platform.
"Where you goin'?" said the driver. "Uptown?"
They said they were.
"Well, come inside. Stay out there, and you'll git hurt and cost this
dried-up company more money than you's wuth."
They dropped into seats by the rear door. He motioned them to the front
corner. "Sit down there," he said, "right there." They obeyed, and as he
turned away he added, what I found more and more to be true, as I saw
more of him, "I ain't de boss, but I's got right smart to say."
Then, he whistled to the mules, flourished his whip, and to a persistent
accompaniment of whacks and whistles we went crawling up the hill.
WALKS ABOUT TALLAHASSEE.
I arrived at Tallahassee, from Jacksonville, late in the afternoon,
after a hot and dusty ride of more than eight hours. The distance is
only a hundred and sixty odd miles, I believe; but with some bright
exceptions, Southern railroads, like Southern men, seem to be under the
climate, and schedule time is more or less a formality.
For the first two thirds of the way the country is flat and barren.
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