Chihuahua, as the Mexican part of the camp is
called, the sunburnt portion of Wolfville's pop'lation broadens into
quite a time. Thar's hoss races an' monte an' mescal an' pulque,
together with roode music sech as may be wrung from primitive
instruments like the guitar, the fiddle, an' tin cans half filled with
stones.

"Faro Nell, who is only a child as you-all might say, an' ready to be
engaged an' entertained with childish things, goes trippin' over to
size up the gala scene.

"Thar's a passel of young Mexicans who's Ridin' for the Chicken's Head.
This yere is a sport something like a Gander Pullin', same as we-all
engages in on Thanksgivin' days an' Christmas, back when I'm a boy in
Tennessee. You saveys a Gander Pullin'? Son, you don't mean sech
ignorance! Thar must have been mighty little sunshine in the life of a
yooth in the morose regions where you was raised for you-all never to
disport yourse'f, even as a spectator, at a Gander Pullin'! It
wouldn't surprise me none after that if you ups an' informs me you
never shakes a fetlock in that dance called money-musk.

"To the end that you be eddicated,--for it's better late than
never,"--I'll pause concernin' Boggs an' the Mexicans long enough to
eloocidate of Gander Pullin's.

"As I su'gests, we onbends in this pastime at sech epocks as Christmas
an' Thanksgivin.' I don't myse'f take actooal part in any Gander
Pullin's. Not that I'm too delicate, but I ain't got no hoss. Bein' a
pore yooth, I spends the mornin' of my c'reer on foot, an' as a hoss is
a necessary ingreedient to a Gander Pullin', I never does stand in
personal on the festival, but is redooced to become a envy-bitten
looker-on.

"Gander Pullin's is conducted near a tavern or a still house so's the
assembled gents won't want the inspiration befittin' both the season
an' the scene, an' is commonly held onder the auspices of the
proprietor tharof. Thar's a track marked out in a cirkle like a little
racecourse for the hosses to gallop on. This course runs between two
poles pinned into the ground; or mebby it's two trees. Thar's a rope
stretched from pole to pole,--taut an' stiff she's stretched; an' the
gander who's the object of the meetin', with his neck an' head greased
a heap lavish, is hung from the rope by his two hind laigs. As the
gander hangs thar, what Colonel Sterett would style 'the cynosure of
every eye,' you'll notice that a gent by standin' high in the stirrups
can get a