rked. There was something too roguish and wanton in his
face, a look too like that of a schoolboy or a street Arab,
to have survived much cudgeling. It was plain that these
feet had kicked off sportive children oftener than they had
plodded with freight through miry lanes. He was altogether a
fine-weather, holiday sort of a donkey; and though he was
just then somewhat solemnized and rueful, he still gave
proof of the levity of his disposition by impudently wagging
his ears at me as I drew near. I say he was somewhat
solemnized just then; for with the admirable instinct of all
men and animals under restraint, he had so wound and wound
the halter about the tree that he could go neither back nor
forwards, nor so much as put his head down to browse. There
he stood, poor rogue, part puzzled, part angry, part, I
believe, amused. He had not given up hope, and dully
revolved the problem in his head, giving ever and again
another jerk at the few inches of free rope that still
remained unwound. A humorous sort of sympathy for the
creature took hold upon me. I went up, and, not without some
trouble on my part, and much distrust and resistance on the
part of Neddy, got him forced backwards until the whole
length of the halter was set loose, and he was once more as
free a donkey as I dared to make him. I was pleased (as
people are) with this friendly action to a fellow-creature
in tribulation, and glanced back over my shoulder to see how
he was profiting by his freedom. The brute was looking after
me; and no sooner did he catch my eye than he put up his
long white face into the air, pulled an impudent mouth at
me, and began to bray derisively. If ever any one person
made a grimace at another, that donkey made a grimace at me.
The hardened ingratitude of his behavior, and the
impertinence that inspired his whole face as he curled up
his lip, and showed his teeth and began to bray, so tickled
me and was so much in keeping with what I had imagined to
myself of his character, that I could not find it in my
heart to be angry, and burst into a peal of hearty laughter.
This seemed to strike the ass as a repartee, so he brayed at
me again by way of rejoinder; and we went on for awhile,
braying and laughing, until I began to grow a-weary of it,
and