"'Come along,' says he. 'We aint a-goin' to stop for them. Get up, all the same.'
"I tried to get up as he said, but it wasn't so easy for me on account of my not bein' such a high stepper as Jone, an' I was a good while a-gettin' a good footin' on the board.
"Mrs. Jackson an' the General, they came right up to us an' set down on a bench which was fastened between two trees near the wall.
An' there they set, a-lookin' steady at us with their four little eyes, like four empty thimbles.
"'You appear to be goin' away,' says Mrs. Jackson.
"'Yes,' says Jone from the top of the wall. We're a-goin' to take a slight stroll outside, this salu-brious evenin'.'
"'Do you think,' says she, 'that the United States Bank would be open this time of day?'
"'Oh no,' says Jone, 'the banks all close at three o'clock. It's a good deal after that now.'
"'But if I told the officers who I was, wouldn't that make a difference?' says she. 'Wouldn't they go down an' open the bank?'
"'Not much,' says Jone, givin' a pull which brought me right up to the top o' the wall an' almost clean down the other side, with one jerk. 'I never knowed no officers that would do that. But,' says he, a kind o' shuttin' his eyes so that she shouldn't see he was lyin', 'we'll talk about that when we come back.'
"'If you see that team of little oxen,' says the big man, 'send 'em 'round to the front gate.'
"'All right,' says Jone; an' he let me down the outside of the wall as if I had been a bag o' horse-feed.
"'But if the bank isn't open you can't pay for it when it does come,' we heard the old lady a-sayin' as we hurried off.
"We didn't lose no time agoin' down to that station, an' it's lucky we didn't, for a train for the city was comin' jus' as we got there, an' we jumped aboard without havin' no time to buy tickets.
There wasn't many people in our car, an we got a seat together.
"'Now then,' says Jone, as the cars went abuzzin' along, 'I feel as if I was really on a bridal-trip, which I mus' say I didn't at that there asylum.'
"An' then I said: 'I should think not,' an' we both bust out a-laughin', as well we might, feelin' sich a change of surroundin's.
"'Do you think,' says somebody behind us, when we'd got through laughin', 'that if I was to send a boy up to the cashier he would either come down or send me the key of the bank?'
"We both turned aroun' as quick as lightnin', an' if there wasn't them two lunertics in the seat behind us!
"It nearly took our breaths away to see them settin' there, staring at us with their thimble eyes, an' a-wearin' their little straw hats, both alike.
"'How on the livin' earth did you two got here?' says I, as soon as I could speak.
"'Oh, we come by the same way you come--by the tem-per-ary stairs,'
says Mrs. Jackson. 'We thought if it was too late to draw any money to-night, it might be well to be on hand bright an' early in the mornin'. An' so we follered you two, as close as we could, because we knew you could take us right to the very bank doors, an'
we didn't know the way ourselves, not never havin' had no occasion to attend to nothin' of this kind before.'
"Jone an' I looked at each other, but we didn't speak for a minute.
"'Then,' says I, 'here's a pretty kittle o' fish.'
"'I should kinder say so,' says Jone. 'We've got these here two lunertics on our hands, sure enough, for there ain't no train back to Pokus tonight, an' I wouldn't go back with 'em if there was. We must keep an eye on 'em till we can see the doctor to-morrow.'
"'I suppose we must,' said I, 'but this don't seem as much like a bridal-trip as it did a while ago.'
"'You're right there,' says Jone.
