This gate was a fair specimen of southern handicraft.

There were two huge posts, eighteen inches in diameter, rough hewed and square, and the heavy gate was so hung on one of these, that it opened only about half the proper distance.

On arriving here, it was necessary for me to let go the end of the rope on the horns of the "in hand ox;" and now as soon as the gate was open, and I let go of it to get the rope, again, off went my oxen--making nothing of their load--full tilt; and in doing so they caught the huge gate between the wheel and the cart body, literally crushing it to splinters, and coming only within a few inches of subjecting me to a similar crushing, for I was just in advance of the wheel when it struck the left gate post.

With these two hair-breadth escape, I thought I could sucessfully( sic) explain to Mr.Covey the delay, and avert apprehended punishment.

I was not without a faint hope of being commended for the stern resolution which I had displayed in accomplishing the difficult task--a task which, I afterwards learned, even Covey himself would not have undertaken, without first driving the oxen for some time in the open field, preparatory to their going into the woods.