Buckboard

“ When the buckboard rolled along the corn road, the little girl stepped out of the field and climbed to the seat on the driver's side. Neither she nor the biggest brother spoke, but, as the blue mare jogged on, she took the reins from him and chirruped gaily to the horse, with an inward wish that, instead of being in the buckboard, she were free of it and on the blue mare's back. The mare made poor progress when she was hitched between shafts, since she was not a trotter, and reached her best gait under a blanket. ”

“ He giggled again.
"Fool—I'll make you laugh on the other side of your mouth!" the Master of Tralee said to himself; and then he motioned to where a bunch of a hundred or so cattle were grazing in a little dip of the country between them and Askatoon. "I'll get my buckboard. It's all hitched up and ready, and we can get down and see them right now," he said aloud. "Won't you find it rough going on the buckboard? Better ride," remarked Orlando Guise.
"I don't ever notice rough going," grunted the old man. "Some people ride horses to show themselves off; I ride a buckboard 'cause it suits me." ”

“ Before they had walked very far they were overtaken by a rattling buckboard, drawn by a lean, raw-boned white horse and driven by a cheerful farmer's wife who invited them to "hop in," an invitation which they accepted gratefully. ”

“ There were lots of riders, too, among the spectators, so that there was no lack of life and movement outside the grounds, as these free lances passed from villagecart to buckboard, from buckboard to victoria, paying their respects to the prosperous-looking occupants. ”

“ With a rattle of wheels over stones and frozen ground the buckboard swung round the bend and down across the muddy creek flats. The driver, Ranger Jones, one of the pioneers of Northern Wyoming, drew off his leather glove and rubbed his chilled hands on the buffalo robe to restore circulation. ”

“ One horse's feet were up at about the level of the other's back. The wheels followed their respective horses. The nigh wheels stayed on the shelf, the off wheels came down the step. The Major and I decided, very suddenly, to leave the buckboard. We were rudely toppled out, down the precipice on the left,—I at the bottom of the heap. Down came camera cases, tripods, boxes of plates, and all the packages of odds and ends I had bought from the Indians, bouncing about our ears. Like a flash the two horses took fright and started off, dragging that overturned buckboard after them. ”

“ The peculiar vehicle which is here known as a "buckboard" we find a comfortable conveyance, with a motion which seems a combination of see-saw and baby-jumper. The "body" is composed of four long boards laid side by side, supported only at the extreme ends where they are hung over the axles. The seats are in the middle. They are neither elegant nor graceful, but easy, "springy" vehicles, which, having neither sides nor top covers, give unimpeded views, and are excellent for sight seeing, though not precisely the thing for rainy weather. ”

“ So, then, it was no surprise to the ranchhold when the buckboard spun to the door, and Raidler took up his debile protégé like a handful of rags and set him down upon the gallery.
McGuire looked upon things strange to him. The ranch-house was the best in the country. It was built of brick hauled one hundred miles by wagon, but it was of but one story, and its four rooms were completely encircled by a mud floor “gallery.” The miscellaneous setting of horses, dogs, saddles, wagons, guns, and cow-punchers’ paraphernalia oppressed the metropolitan eyes of the wrecked sportsman. ”

“ Most people walk to the Back Pasture, and find it very rough work; but one can get there in a buggy, if the horse knows what is expected of him. The safest conveyance is our coupe. This began life as a buckboard, and we bought it for five dollars from a sorrowful man who had no other sort of possessions ”

“ A smooth plank, ten feet long, resting upon trestles placed at either end, assists the acrobat to vault high in the air. Each time he falls the rebound sends him up again. This is the principle of the buck-board. Remove the trestles, put a pair of wheels in the place of each, and you have the vehicle itself, minus shafts or pole, according as one or two horses are to draw it. Increased weight bends the board or the spring more and more until it is in danger of touching the ground. The passengers sit in the hollow of this spring, the natural tendency of which is to shoot them into the air. ”

“ The American buckeyes are less sturdy in form and less [Pg 67] showy in flower than the European species, but they have the horse-shoe print with the nails in it where the leaf-stalk meets the twig. The brown nuts, with the dull white patch which fastens them in the husk, justifies the name "buckeye." One nibble at the nut will prove to any one that, as a fruit, it is too bitter for even horses. Bitter, astringent bark is characteristic of the family. ”

“ During the early morning, on to-day’s march, an astonishing incident occurred. Some of us, on the transport line, were suddenly startled by the rush of an animal from the bush, and were amazed to witness a buck jump clean across the road, over the top of a double line of mules. Half a dozen white men and some [90] natives saw this almost unbelievable feat. The buck landed on the far side of the road only two yards away from me, and I think it was a hartebeeste, but in the half-light I was unable to be quite certain of the species. ”

“ Keeping as close to the face of the wall of stone as possible, and stepping carefully, Brickdust crossed the broken spot in the cliff trail.
“Sim, you help Bob get his mount over,” said Frank, as he started to follow the example of Mr. Riley.
Of course Buckskin gave no trouble. He had been brought up amid such wild surroundings, and was as sure-footed as a mountain goat. Besides, doubtless during the innumerable gallops taken by Frank, they had frequently been compelled to navigate ticklish paths, where a slip meant disaster; so the horse was used to such things. ”

“ In Āgra, Chandwār, Bīāna and those parts, again, people water with a bucket; this is a laborious and filthy way. At the well-edge they set up a fork of wood, having a roller adjusted between the forks, tie a rope to a large bucket, put the rope over the roller, and tie its other end to the bullock. One person must drive the bullock, another empty the bucket. Every time the bullock turns after having drawn the bucket out of the well, that rope lies on the bullock-track, in pollution of urine and dung, before it descends again into the well. ”

“ Dick asked, winking at the Kid. "The kind that used a buck-strap and ate his coffee out of a frying-pan."
"Buck-strap! Buck—say, boy, if any man on that there Two-bar Cross outfit ever heard you speak of a buck-strap they wouldn't know what you was talkin' about. No, sir! Those boys were rough customers."
A buck-strap is a leather thong fastened to the saddle in such a way that if the pony suddenly bucks, its rider can hold himself on by inserting his hand within this thong and pulling hard. The user of one of these contraptions is never proud of it, needless to say. ”

“ It made him feel like a man. Buck walked, this still and hazy October afternoon, down the crooked and stony road that led down the crooked and stony creek, until he came to a small field of ripe corn. There he filched the biggest cornstalk he could find, and then he hastened over to the narrow stream, sat himself down beside it, opened his bone-handled barlow knife and began to whittle out the parts of a water-wheel. ”

“ BUCKLE. A mast buckles when it suffers by compression, so that the fibre takes a sinuous form, and the grain is upset. Also, in Polar regions, the bending or arching of the ice upwards, preceding a nip.
BUCKLERS. Two blocks of wood fitted together to stop the hawse-holes, leaving only sufficient space between them for the cable to pass, and thereby preventing the ship taking in much water in a heavy head-sea. They are either riding or blind bucklers (which see) . [141]
BUCKRA. A term for white man, used by the blacks in the West Indies, Southern States of America, and the African coast. ”

“ I like one with plenty of tassels, to keep off the flies. A temporary substitute for a curb is made by noosing a string, and putting the noose round the horse's lower jaw. If the string be long enough, it can be doubled back again, and tied to the other side of the noose, so as to make a complete bridle. The groom's fashion of giving the halter a hitch, and putting it round the jaw, is well known.
Buckles.--A contrivance like this will often be found useful to replace a buckle and strap; by twisting the lower thong more tightly, its length can be shortened as much as may be required. ”

“ Yet often at night when the tempest howls and the thunders roar, his form, or shadow, or image, or whatever it be, is seen to stride this valley in which we ride, on his swift bob-tail nag. When a Buckner’s Creek baby cries, whether from pure perverseness or from colic, only say to him ‘Strap Buckner’ once, and he will forthwith scrooch up in his cradle, and you will hear no more from that baby for hours. ”

“ With the air of a man who is thoroughly acquainted with the place, Redward Buckland followed an almost invisible path—termed throughout uncountable ages a Hard—that led across the mud flats to the edge of the water, Raymond treading carefully at his heels. At the end of the Hard lay a large, bluff-bowed boat, and, pulling the craft ashore by a length of rope, the archer tossed the oars into it and beckoned to his son to jump on board. ”

“ The whole upper edge of the buckler is always surrounded by a very ornamental semicircular border, sometimes semi-elliptical, of punctures placed in the meshes of a net-work in high relief and arranged close together, in rays, passing perpendicularly from the buckler and forming at the same time when observed transversely, curved lines parallel to its upper rim or edge, excepting at the sides, where they diverge, leaving a space occupied by other lines of dottings, parallel to the former, but speedily terminating on the cheeks of the buckler. ”

“ He has been known to wade up to his neck in water, and change his clothes driving away from the river on the box of a fly. This was an exceptional case; but it was a common thing for him to sit for hours in wet boots. He rarely wore a great-coat; he never owned a railway-rug; he took a delight in cold, and frequently compared himself to a polar bear, which languished in the heat and revived in the frost. The pleasure which Mr. Buckland derived from cold accounted for many of his eccentricities. Even in winter he wore the smallest amount of clothing ”

“ The first object that attracted their attention was the colours; these they soon hauled down: then they purloined rope, sails, and other things they thought would prove serviceable—such as glass bottles to bark and sharpen their spears with. There were many other articles they took, but fortunately they were afraid to go down into the cabin, and so considerable property was saved from plunder. Having completed their marauding excursion, they carried what they had to land, and far back into the bush. ”

“ They had been taught to beat a drum, turn a spit, strike upon an anvil, turn a coffee roaster, and ring bells.
“Two of them, who seemed to be more sagacious than the rest, drew a bucket suspended by a pulley, like a draw well. [144] The length of the rope was about six feet, and they perfectly understood when the bucket was high enough to stop pulling. Most of the time they stood upright on their hind legs.
“One of them would turn a wheel when a piece of meat stuck on a spit was put before it. ”

“ The side of the bark which runs next the wood thus becomes the outside of the boat, because it is smooth and slippery, and cuts the water with less difficulty than the other.
“The building of these boats is not always quick; for sometimes it happens that after peeling the bark off an elm, and carefully examining it, it is found pierced with holes and slits, or is too thin to venture one’s life in. That which we made was big enough to bear four persons, with our baggage, which weighed somewhat more than a man. ”

“ The buckets have steel mouthpieces, some with quite sharp projecting lips, which cut into the sand and gravelly bottom, and scoop up what fills each bucket. At the bottom of each are cullender holes, through which the water drains off as the buckets go on and pass over the platform and empty themselves on an inclined plane, down which the contents fall into a boat, which rows away when full, and deposits the contents wherever wanted. If you ever looked at a book at Edgeworthstown called Machines Approuvés, you would have the image of this machine. ”

“ Passing about many a stunted grove he came at last to the place whence Buck had fled. He knew that in the general direction indicated by the line of flight, beyond two ridges, was the valley of the giant sequoias. There a horse would find water, shelter, and grass. If he failed to find the animal there—well, then, Buck was well on the trail or lost to King in any one of a hundred places. ”

“ Amongst other things, I killed my first bushbock, an animal of which the yellowish-tan skin is marked with white stripes, the lines so [Pg 255] arranged as if they were a regular harness. There is always to be observed some difference or other between each of these creatures and all its fellows; they are never precisely alike; either there will be some spot or speck, or stripe, which is peculiar to each, and distinguishes it from all the rest. The specimens of the bush-bock that I saw were always solitary; and it would seem to be more timid than any other species of antelope. ”