Calvin Coolidge and I: How We
Spent the Day on March 4, 1925 (Cont.)
Screen 6 of 7I lasted for almost two more blocks, but for just one more intersection dip. At the second intersection after the wheel broke loose, I just leaned over to the left and fell out. Since my part of the seat was by then very close to the street level, I did not have far to fall. But I did bump my head and bruise my arm as I rolled out over the gutter (Bonnie must have then been at the left side of the street) and came to rest abruptly against a brambly hawthorn tree. Its thorns either prevented or brought to a sudden end any trauma I might have had from the fall, because I immediately sat up and looked around. As I remember it now, nobody seemed to be concerned about me. Everyone was more interested in the dashing pony and cart, since that was where the action was.
Bonnie raced on--far faster I'm sure than she had run for my brother at the county fair the year before. Still holding the bit in her teeth and dragging behind her what was left of the cart, she continued in terror down the street leading to the railroad tracks. Taking no notice of the lowering gates at the crossing, she reached the other side of the tracks just before a speeding freight train arrived.
The cart was not so fortunate. It was hit directly and completely demolished by the train's engine.
Soon afterward some of my mother's friends who had witnessed the runaway found Bonnie unhurt and quietly grazing in a patch of grass near the crossing, with the remnants of the borrowed harness still dangling from her back and legs. I was later told she gave no resistance to those who brought her home. Apparently, she had spent all her energy in her flight for freedom.
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