More Tish | Page 4

run away, with all the carving
knives and razors they could gather together, and were found a week
later in a cave in the mountains twenty miles or so from town.
Tish showed us her sleeping-bag, which was felt outside and her old

white fur rug within. Aggie planned hers immediately on the same lines,
with her fur coat as a lining; but I had mine made of oilcloth outside,
my rheumatism having warned me that we were going to have rain. I
was right about the rain.
I had an old army revolver that had belonged to my father, and of
course Tish had her coal-cellar rifle, but Aggie had nothing more
dangerous than a bayonet from the Mexican War. This being too heavy
to carry, and dull--being only possible as a weapon by bringing the
handle down on one's opponent's head--Aggie was forced to buy a
revolver.
The man in the shop tried to sell her a small pearl-handled one, but she
would not look at it. She bought one of the sort that goes on shooting as
long as one holds a finger on the trigger--a snub-nosed thing that
looked as deadly as it was. She was in terror of it from the moment she
got it home, and during most of the trip it was packed in excelsior, with
the barrel stuffed with cotton, on Modestine's back.
Which brings me to Modestine.
Tish received three answers to her advertisement: One was a mule, one
a piebald pony with a wicked eye, and the third was a donkey. It
seemed that Stevenson had said that the pack animal of such a trip
should be "cheap, small and hardy," and that a donkey best of all
answered these requirements.
The donkey in question was, however, not a female. Tish was firm
about this; but on no more donkeys being offered, she bought this one
and called him Modestine anyhow. He was very dirty, and we paid a
dollar extra to have him washed with soap powder, as our food was to
be carried on his back. Also the day before we started I spent an hour or
so on him with a fine comb, with gratifying results.
I must confess I entered on the adventure with a light heart. Tish had
apparently given up all thought of the aeroplane; her automobile was
being used by Charlie Sands; the weather was warm and sunny, and the
orchards were in bloom. I had no premonition of danger. The adventure,

reduced to its elements of canned food, alcohol lamp, sleeping-bags
and toothbrushes, seemed no adventure at all, but a peaceful and
pastoral excursion by three middle-aged women into green fields and
pastures new.
We reckoned, however, without Aggie's missionary dime.
Aggie's church had sent each of its members a ten-cent piece, with
instructions to invest it in some way and to return it multiplied as much
as possible in three months. This was on Aggie's mind, but we did not
know it until later. Really, Aggie's missionary dime is the story. If she
had done as she had planned at first and invested it in an egg, had
hatched the egg in cotton wool on the shelf over her kitchen range and
raised the chicken, eventually selling the chicken to herself for dinner
at seventy-five cents, this story would never have been written.
What the dime really bought was a glass of jelly wrapped in a
two-day-old newspaper. But to go back:
We were to start from Tish's at dawn on Tuesday morning. Modestine's
former owner had agreed to bring him at that hour to the alley behind
Tish's apartment. On Monday Aggie and I sent over what we felt we
could not get along without, and about five we both arrived.
Tish was sitting on the floor, with luggage scattered all round her and
heaped on the chairs and bed.
She looked up witheringly when we entered.
"You forgot your opera cloak, Lizzie," she said, "and Aggie has only
sent five pairs of shoes!"
"I've got to have shoes," Aggie protested.
"If you've got to have five pairs of shoes, six white petticoats, summer
underwear, intermediates and flannels, a bathrobe, six bath towels and a
sunshade, not to mention other things, you want an elephant, not a
donkey."

"Why do we have a donkey?" I asked. "Why don't we have a horse and
buggy, and go like Christians?"
"Because you and Aggie wouldn't walk if we did," snapped Tish. "I
know you both. You'd have rheumatism or a corn and you'd take your
walking trip sitting. Besides, we may not always keep to the roads. I'd
like to go up into the mountains."
Well, Tish was disagreeable, but right. As it turned out the donkey,
being small, could only carry the sleeping-bags, our