Her get—that is, the four brats, all seemingly stout boys—soon developed motion sickness of an intensity I would not have thought possible. We had scarcely cleared the ferry that took us off Galveston island before they began a sequence of violent retchings that were sustained, with few interruptions, for the next ten days and nights. Besides the vomitings, they were soon awash in fevers, diarrheas, and wild seizures resembling convulsions in which they clawed at one another and chewed on one another’s clothes. In their few quiet moments Mrs. Bargesley doped them with a thick pink nostrum from a quart bottle she kept handy.

The worst riot that ever occurred in Philadelphia—and we’ve seen some beauties—was as nothing to the melee inside that stagecoach. Pope, the harness salesman on my right, immediately took to drink, while Brisket, on my left, contented himself with peculiarly foul cigars. The smoke had at least the effect of discouraging mosquitoes.

To me, the coach seemed to bounce over Texas like a huge flying ball. Though disgusted by the Bargesley brats’ retchings, I could hardly blame them for it. If I had had much in my stomach I would have vomited too.

Wind was equally hard to contain. During her many naps Mrs. Bargesley farted like thunder; if a similar slip occurred while she was awake, she would blush and slap the nearest boy silly in an effort to transfer the blame.

“You mean she farted right there in the coach?” Billy Bone asked, badly shocked.

The look of fear left his face; somehow the thought of Mrs. Bargesley’s farts cleared his mind of the Death Dog.

“I hope no woman ever farts around me,” he said nervously. “I wouldn’t have stood it. I’d have climbed out and rode with the drivers.”

The next day, when we were no more than twenty miles from Greasy Corners, I heard him telling Joe Lovelady the awful news: a woman had farted in a stagecoach.

“Probably wasn’t given nothing but frijoles to eat,” Joe concluded. “They will make you blow.”

Billy muttered about Mrs. Bargesley’s bad manners for weeks. In his mind, frijoles were no excuse. He was delicate about such matters, nervous and delicate; and yet he was just a boy who had been raised scrappy, in the raw mining saloons of Colorado.

18.

In fact, I did try riding with the drivers, but I was soon judged to be a threat to public safety and stuffed back inside the coach. Apparently I woke from a brief nightmare and tried to strangle one of the drivers, almost causing us both to fall off the stage.

I have no memory of that incident at all. The last thing I remember about the trip was wasting the hour we had in San Antonio buying a new hat. Mr. Pope and Mr. Brisket did the same, for of course all our headgear had blown out the window somewhere around Houston.