e with one
of the mules to get his feed. In order to prevent spilling the peelings
at the entrance to the cookhouse, he backed the mule up against the
door. In France, as is well known, every farmhouse has a cesspool in
which all manner of refuse is distilled by means of a pump and straw,
and used to fertilize the soil. These pools are all the way from 8 to
10 feet deep. Immediately in front of the cookhouse and the mule was one
of these cesspools, our billets here being on a farm. It happened that
when Scotty was peeling his potatoes that day, he had thrown them so
close to the fire that they got thoroughly heated. He hastily gathered
them up and threw them in a pan which he handed to Tompkins, the man who
had charge of the mules and who had entered into the agreement with him;
the driver was still on the animal's back. When the mule stuck his nose
into the hot peelings he jerked backwards into the door of the
cookhouse, the driver's back struck the wall over the entrance and he
was shot clean off the mule's back head-foremost into the cesspool 10
feet away. When I say that the bone-grinding department of a stockyard's
plant is pleasant compared to the odor of the mixture contained in the
cesspool, some idea will be had of the driver's condition when he was
pulled out by Tompkins. In the meantime, Scotty was standing in the
cookhouse, laughing his sides out at the driver's plight, and he had
forgotten to notice that the mule was backing further and further into
the room. Just then Mr. Mule got his foot tangled up in one of the
dixies that were lying on the floor, and in attempting to kick it off,
his foot missed Scotty's head by about six inches. Scotty backed up and
so did the mule, still kicking, each kick bringing his hoof nearer
Scotty's mug.

"Take your damn mule out," he roared, but they returned the laugh on him
and made no move. The next kick brought the hoof and dixie within an
inch of the cook's skull and in desperation and fear for his life he
slid sidewise under the mule's belly and just escaped a vicious bite as
he was getting out of the door.

What the mule did not do in that room to the dinner preparations was not
worth doing and Scotty was peremptorily demoted for the loss of the
men's dinner and put to tending mules instead. He had no more idea of
caring for a mule than he had for performing a delicate operation on the
brain and, as a consequence, when inspection day came around, the hip
bones of the