So he did. I wouldn't have done it for a million dollars and I tried to make him not, but he did it. He took off his clothes and lowered himself over the side of the boat and said, garsh! how cold it was! So then he edged himself along, holding onto the side of the boat and all at once he swore.
“What?” me and Bony both asked at once.
“Bob wire!” he said, and he let go with one hand and felt down into the water. Then he took hold of the boat with both hands and felt along under the boat with his feet. “It's a post,” he said. “It's a bob-wire fence.”
So that was what it was. There was a bob-wire fence and we had rowed right on top of one of the posts and stuck there, on a nail or something, and the post was loose in the mud and gave when we rowed, so we couldn't wrench loose by rowing. And that was why the mush-rat house did not float downstream; it was caught on another post. So all at once Swatty said:
“I know where we are; we're in Shebberd's lower cornfield!” And that was where we were. The water had come up and covered it up to the tops of the bob-wire fence posts.
Well, Swatty's teeth were chattering but he wouldn't get right into the boat. He made me and Bony row while he was out, and I guess with the boat lighter it floated off the post easier, for it did float off. So then Swatty got in and dressed and we rowed toward the voices and the splashing.
It was Judge Hannan all right. He was pitch-forking buffalo fish with the Shebberds. He had on rubber hip boots and he was hot and having a good time. We rowed in close to where he was and watched them pitchfork awhile and then Swatty backwatered the skiff up to where the judge was standing and said:
“Say, mister judge!”
The judge leaned his hand on the stem of the boat and said:
“Yes, my lad, what is it?”