And there was the dray, driven by Trimble Cushman, drawn by two proud black horses of great strength.  This trade was a sort of elder, heavier brother of the express trade, conveying huge cases of merchandise from the freight depot to the shops of the town.  Progress was slower here than with the express wagon, or even the ice wagon; you had to do lots of backing, with much stern calling to the big horses, and often it took a long time to ease the big boxes to the sidewalk—­time and grunting exclamations.  Still it was not unattractive to the dilettante, and he rode beside Trimble with profit to his knowledge of men and affairs.

But better than all, for a good loose trade involving the direction of horses, was driving the bus from the Mansion House to the depot.  The majestic yellow vehicle with its cushioned, lavishly decorated interior, its thronelike seat above the world, was an exciting affair, even when it rested in the stable yard.  When the horses were hitched to it, and Starling Tucker from the high seat with whip and reins directed its swift progress, with rattles and rumbles like a real circus wagon, it was thrilling indeed.  This summer marked the first admission of Wilbur to an intimacy with the privileged driver which entitled him to mount dizzily to the high seat and rattle off to trains.  He had patiently courted Starling Tucker in the office of the Mansion House livery stable, sitting by him in silent admiration while he discoursed learnedly of men and horses, helping to hitch up the dappled grays to the bus, fetching his whip, holding his gloves, until it became a matter of course that he should mount to the high seat with him.

This seemed really to be the best of all loose trades.  On that high seat, one hand grasping an iron railing at the side, sitting by grim-faced Starling Tucker in his battered hat, who drove carelessly with one hand and tugged at his long red moustache with the other, it was pleasantly appalling to reflect that he might be at any moment dashed to pieces on the road below; to remember that Starling himself, the daily associate of horses and a man of high adventure, had once fallen from this very seat and broken bones—­the most natural kind of accident, Starling averred, though gossip had blamed it on Pegleg McCarron’s whisky.  Not only was it delectable to ride in the high place, to watch trains come and go, to carry your load of travellers back to the Mansion House, but there were interludes of relaxation when you could sit about in the office of the stables and listen to agreeable talk from the choice spirits of abundant leisure, with whom work seemed to be a tribal taboo, daily assembled there.  The flow of anecdote was often of a pungent quality, and the amateur learned some words and phrases that would have caused Winona acute distress; but he learned about men and horses and dogs, and enlarged his knowledge of Newbern’s inner life, having peculiar angles of his own upon it from his other contacts with its needs for ice and express packages and crates of bulkier merchandise.