“It’s great to be a wife in Mexico,” observed Scott, drily. “Think of that, Miss Polly, next time you meet a fascinating Spaniard.”
“Don’t be disagreeable,” said Mrs. Conrad, “and don’t tell fibs. It’s the women of the lower classes who have the hard time down here just as they do in every country.”
“Except the U. S. A.,” replied Scott, stoutly. “A woman may have hard luck in our country because she’s sick or poor or married to a no-account; but not because the general opinion of the female sex is so darned low that any loafer who comes along feels that he’s got a right to treat her as he pleases.”
“How you like to argue every point, don’t you?” observed Polly. “Were you born like that or did it grow on you? Oh!”
The “oh” was literally jolted out of her. Turning rather a sudden curve at a pretty good clip, the wagon slipped over the edge of a chuck-hole a little deeper than the ordinary. Happening as it did in just the right place, it caught the weakened wheel and wrenched it off as neatly and as suddenly as a dentist wrenches a tooth out of the jaw of an unwilling patient.
There was a crash and a jar as the wagon sank on its side, and the frightened horses struggling to pull the dragging load, snapped the harness where Scott had patched it. The occupants were jumbled into the bottom of the wagon, except Hard, who was pitched out into the road. Scott was out in a minute and at the horses’ heads; the women righted themselves just in time to see Hard pull himself to his feet, staggering as he did so.
“Hurt, Henry?” asked Scott, who was trying to calm the horses.
“No, just bent my knee under me.”
“Here, hold these critturs while I pull the ladies out!”
“We’re all right—that is, I’m all right. Look after Mrs. Conrad,” said Polly, as Scott lifted her from the débris. “What was it? The wheel?”