Without further hesitation--in fact, with almost desperate haste, as if wishing to dispose of a disagreeable duty--he ripped open the buttons of his waistcoat and removed it at the same time with his coat, as if the two had been but one garment. He tossed them into the bottom of the buggy in a disorderly heap. But Mrs. Kimbal rescued them, separated them, folded them neatly, and stowed them under the seat.
Saterlee made no comment. He was thinking of the state of a shirt that he had had on since early morning, and was wondering how, with his elbows pressed very tightly to his sides, he could possibly manage to unlace his boots. He made one or two tentative efforts. But Mrs. Kimbal seemed to divine the cause of his embarrassment.
"_Please_," she said, "don't mind anything--on my account."
He reached desperately, and regardlessly, for his boots, unlaced them, and took them off.
"Why," exclaimed Mrs. Kimbal, "_both_ your heels need darning!"
Saterlee had tied his boots together, and was fastening them around his neck by the remainder of the laces.
"I haven't anybody to do my darning now," he said. "My girls are all at school, except two that's married. So--" He finished his knot, took the reins in his left hand and the whip in his right.
At first the old mare would not budge. Switching was of no avail. Saterlee brought down the whip upon her with a sound like that of small cannon. She sighed and walked gingerly into the river.
The water rose slowly (or the river bottom shelved very gradually), and they were half-way across before it had reached the hubs of the wheels. But the mare appeared to be in deeper. She refused to advance, and once more turned and stared with a kind of wistful rudeness. Then she saw the whip, before it fell, made a desperate plunge, and floundered forward into deep water--but without the buggy.
One rotten shaft had broken clean off, both rotten traces, and the reins, upon which hitherto there had been no warning pull, were jerked from Saterlee's loose fingers. The old mare reached the further shore presently, swimming and scrambling upon a descending diagonal, stalked sedately up the bank, and then stood still, only turning her head to look at the buggy stranded in mid-stream. The sight appeared to arouse whatever of youthful mischief remained in the feeble old heart. She seemed to gather herself for a tremendous effort, then snorted once, and kicked thrice--three feeble kicks of perhaps six inches in the perpendicular.