"I think there are about three o' these cricks to every mile. Do you really suppose we'll be able to git there before our three years is up?"
"All depends on the mules," answered Si cheerily. "If this sudden spell o' goodness holds out we may get there before evening."
CHAPTER III. THIRD DAY OF THE DELUGE
TOILSOME PLODDING, AND "SHELBYVILLE ONLY 15 MILES AWAY."
IT SEEMS impossible, but the third day's rain was even worse than that of the two preceding. The drops seemed much larger, to follow each other faster, and with less interval between the downpours.
"Does it always rain this way in June down here?" Si asked a patriarch, who was sitting on his porch by the roadside in a split-bottomed rocking-chair, resting his bony hands on a cane, the head of which was a ram's horn, smoking a corn-cob pipe and watching the passing column with lack-luster eyes.
"Sah," said the sage, poking down the ashes in his pipe with his little finger, "I've done lived in the Duck River Valley ever sence Capting Jimmy Madison wuz elected President the fust time, and I never seed sich a wet spell as this afore. I reckon hit's all along o' the wah. We allers have a powerful sight o' rain in wah times. Hit rained powerful when Jinerul Jackson wuz foutin' the Injuns down at Hoss Shoe Bend, and the Summers durin' the Mexican war wuz mouty wet, but they didn't hold a candle to what we're havin' this yeah. Hit's the shootin' and bangin', I reckon, that jostles the clouds so's they can't hold in."
"How far is it to Shelbyville, Gran'pap?" asked Shorty.