red to have seen a pump with a trough somewhere, and they
proposed to reconnoitre while we should "wait _by_ the wagon" their
return. No, I said we would drive on to the pump, while they walked.

"You drive!" ejaculated Halicarnassus, contemptuously.

Now I do not, as a general thing, have an overweening respect for female
teamsters. There is but one woman in the world to whose hands I confide
the reins and my bones with entire equanimity; and she says, that, when
she is driving, she dreads of all things to meet a driving woman. If a man
said this, it might be set down to prejudice. I don't make any account of
Halicarnassus's assertion, that, if two women walking in the road on a
muddy day meet a carriage, they never keep together, but invariably one
runs to the right and one to the left, so that the driver cannot favor
them at all, but has to crowd between them, and drive both into the mud.
That is palpably interested false witness. He thinks it is fine fun to
push women into the mud, and frames such flimsy excuses. But as a woman's
thoughts about women, this woman's utterances are deserving of attention;
and she says that women are not to be depended upon. She is never sure
that they will not turn out on the wrong side. They are nervous; they are
timid; they are unreasoning; they are reckless. They will give a horse a
disconnected, an utterly inconsequent "cut," making him spring, to the
jeopardy of their own and others' safety. They are not concentrative, and
they are not infallibly courteous, as men are. I remember I was driving
with her once between Newburyport and Boston. It was getting late, and we
were very desirous to reach our destination before nightfall. Ahead of us
a woman and a girl were jogging along in a country-wagon. As we wished to
go much faster than they, we turned aside to pass them; but just as we
were well abreast, the woman started up her horse, and he skimmed over the
ground like a bird. We laughed, and followed well content. But after he
had gone perhaps an eighth of a mile, his speed slackened down to the
former jog-trot. Three times we attempted to pass before we really
comprehended the fact that that infamous woman was deliberately detaining
and annoying us. The third time, when we had so nearly passed them that
our horse was turning into the road again, she struck hers up so suddenly
and unexpectedly that her wheels almost grazed ours. Of course,
understanding her game, we ceased the attemp