“Oh, oh! I know Pa’s broken my neck!” cried Mrs. Alexander, as she caught her plump neck between two fat hands.
“Blame it all on the pesky earthquake!” shouted Mr. Alexander, thickly, while the end of his tongue began swelling where his teeth had cut into it.
Everyone was ordered out, while Mr. Alexander tried to back the touring car out of the cleft across the roadway. But it was a deep trench and the front of the car had settled into the earth.
“The only way to get her up is to plank down several rails and run her out on them,” said Mr. Alexander, lispingly, as he studied the situation.
“It’s too dark to hunt for rails or boards, and there isn’t a house in sight,” Dodo replied.
“What can we do, then?” asked the perplexed little man, scratching his head for an idea to start from his brain.
It was nearly dawn when the peasants started from their homes for the city, to sell their market-goods, so the tourists had not long to sit and wait, before a cart drawn by two sturdy oxen rumbled along.
“Hey, there! If you hook them beasts to my car and pull it out of this hole fer me, I’ll pay fer the animals!” called Mr. Alexander, hoping the man understood his English.
Mr. Fabian then interpreted what had been said, and the man examined the condition of the ditch before he replied. Then he gave Mr. Fabian to understand that he could remove two heavy side-boards from the cart and try in that way to help run the wheels out.
After strenuous labor and many pulls and tugs on the part of the oxen, the car was backed to the road again. But the ditch was still there, and it was too deep to cross without a bridge, or by filling it in.