All Who Had Seen
The Catastrophe Were Describing It At Once, And Each
Trying To Talk Louder Than His Neighbor;
And one youth
of a superior genius ran a little way up the hill,
called attention, tripped, fell, rolled down
Among us,
and thus triumphantly showed exactly how the thing had been done.
Harris and I were included in all the descriptions;
how we were coming along; how Hans Gross shouted;
how we looked up startled; how we saw Peter coming like
a cannon-shot; how judiciously we got out of the way,
and let him come; and with what presence of mind we
picked him up and brushed him off and set him on a rock
when the performance was over. We were as much heroes
as anybody else, except Peter, and were so recognized;
we were taken with Peter and the populace to Peter's
mother's cottage, and there we ate bread and cheese,
and drank milk and beer with everybody, and had a most
sociable good time; and when we left we had a handshake
all around, and were receiving and shouting back LEB'
WOHL's until a turn in the road separated us from our
cordial and kindly new friends forever.
We accomplished our undertaking. At half past eight
in the evening we stepped into Oppenau, just eleven
hours and a half out of Allerheiligen - one hundred
and forty-six miles. This is the distance by pedometer;
the guide-book and the Imperial Ordinance maps make
it only ten and a quarter - a surprising blunder,
for these two authorities are usually singularly accurate
in the matter of distances.
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