Yet, as you
dash along so bravely, you can see that you arrest the occupations of all
these villagers as by a kind of enchantment; the children pause and turn
their heads toward you from their mud-pies (to the production of which
there is literally no limit in that region); the matron rests one
parboiled hand on her hip, letting the other still linger listlessly upon
the wash-board, while she lifts her eyes from the suds to look at you; the
boys, who all summer long are forever just going into the water or just
coming out of it, cease their buttoning or unbuttoning; the baby, which
has been run after and caught and suitably posed, turns its anguished eyes
upon you, where also falls the mother's gaze, while her descending palm is
arrested in mid air. I forbear to comment upon the surprising populousness
of these villages, where, in obedience to all the laws of health, the
inhabitants ought to be wasting miserably away, but where they flourish
in spite of them. Even Accident here seems to be robbed of half her
malevolence; and that baby (who will presently be chastised with terrific
uproar) passes an infancy of intrepid enjoyment amidst the local perils,
and is no more affected by the engines and the cars than by so many
fretful hens with their attendant broods of chickens.
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