we was in that solemn, peaceful desert, the more the
hurry and fuss got kind of soothed down in us, and
the more happier and contented and satisfied we got to
feeling, and the more we got to liking the desert, and
then loving it. So we had cramped the speed down,
as I was saying, and was having a most noble good
lazy time, sometimes watching through the glasses,
sometimes stretched out on the lockers reading, some-
times taking a nap.
It didn’t seem like we was the same lot that was in
such a state to find land and git ashore, but it was.
But we had got over that — clean over it. We was
used to the balloon now and not afraid any more, and
didn’t want to be anywheres else. Why, it seemed
just like home; it ‘most seemed as if I had been born
and raised in it, and Jim and Tom said the same. And
always I had had hateful people around me, a-nagging
at me, and pestering of me, and scolding, and finding
fault, and fussing and bothering, and sticking to me,
and keeping after me, and making me do this, and
making me do that and t’other, and always selecting
out the things I didn’t want to do, and then giving me
Sam Hill because I shirked and done something else,
and just aggravating the life out of a body all the time;
but up here in the sky it was so still and sunshiny and
lovely, and plenty to eat, and plenty of sleep, and
strange things to see, and no nagging and no pester-
ing, and no good people, and just holiday all the time.
Land, I warn’t in no hurry to git out and buck at
civilization again. Now, one of the worst things about
civilization is, that anybody that gits a letter with
trouble in it comes and tells you all about it and makes
you feel bad, and the newspapers fetches you the
troubles of everybody all over the world, and keeps
you downhearted and dismal ‘most all the time, and
it’s such a heavy load for a person. I hate them
newspapers; and I hate letters; and if I had my way
I wouldn’t allow nobody to load his troubles on to
other folks he ain’t acquainted with, on t’other side of
the world, that way. Well, up in a balloon there ain’t
any of that, and it’s the darlingest place there is.
We had supper, and that night was one of the
prettiest nights I ever see. The moon made it just
like daylight, only a heap softer; and once we see a
lion standing all alone by himself, just all alone on the
earth, it seemed like, and his shadder laid on the sand
by him like a puddle of ink. That’s the kind of moon-
light to have.
Mainly we laid on our backs and talked; we didn’t
want to go to sleep. Tom said we was right in the
midst of the Arabian Nights now. He said it was right
along here that one of the cutest things in that book
happened; so we looked down and watched while he
told about it, because there ain’t anything that is so
interesting to look at as a place that a book has talked
about. It was a tale about a camel-driver that had lost
his camel, and he come along in the desert and met a
man, and says:
“Have you run across a stray camel to-day?”
And the man says:
“Was he blind in his left eye?”
“Yes.”
“Had he lost an upper front tooth?”
“Yes.”
“Was his off hind leg lame?”
“Yes.”
“Was he loaded with millet-seed on one side and
honey on the other?”
“Yes, but you needn’t go into no more details —
that’s the one, and I’m in a hurry. Where did you
see him?”
“I hain’t seen him at all,” the man says.
“Hain’t seen him at all? How can you describe
him so close, then?”
“Because when a person knows how to use his eyes,
everything has got a meaning to it; but most people’s
eyes ain’t any good to them. I knowed a camel had