"Bill's all right, but—but—there seems to be somethin' wrong with the shaft on this side. It wobbles," said the driver.
Jimmy went around to the other side and inspected it.
"Humph! Does wobble," he admitted. "It's cracked. However, that's all right. Just think how bad it would have been if it had broken in two. Now, as it is, maybe it'll last till we get to Mountain City, and I'll pay for a new one. You see, partner, all these little things are sent to try our fortitude and philosophy."
Again they moved ahead, and Jimmy whimsically homilized that it wasn't how a shaft looked or felt that counted, but whether it did its work. "Why, if everybody in this world who is cracked was chucked aside as useless, I reckon there'd be mighty few folks left to do things," he insisted. "There'd be milk without crocks, and jobs without men; girls without sweethearts and churches without bells, son. Being cracked isn't a sin, it's just being common!"
"Whoa! Whoa, Bill! She's busted for good now, Mister!"
The damaged shaft had snapped ominously and the harassed Bill this time threatened to kick the whole exasperating outfit to kindling wood if his heels held out long enough to accomplish such a worthy job.
"I'm getting used to this snow, now; I like it!" asserted Jimmy, as he again got out to make an inspection. "We folks from Maryland always did appreciate snow. It makes us understand the general air of chilliness that seems to hover around New England Yanks. Well, looks as if we'd have to steal a fence rail somewhere, boy, if we wish to continue this delightful journey. Ah, there's a nice old stake-and-ridered layout over there. I always knew they were the best kind of fences for country roads. They do come in handy, all right. You hold William and explain things to him while I grab one."
He waded into a ditch where the snow was waist high, floundered up a bank, and selected a fairly straight fence rail that would serve his purpose, and wallowed back with it. Once he fell and got snow up his sleeves as high as his elbows.
"Now some folks would swear that was cold and uncomfortable," he remarked as he shook it out in chunks, "but I like it, because I know it's clean. It'd be awfully good in a cocktail just about now! Snow? Why I've known time in a jay town down in Louisiana when I'd have cried with joy for anything as cool as that to put in even plain water. 'We never appreciate our blessings till we get 'em,' as the Mormon said just before his seventeen wives swung him up on the limb of a tree."
For a time he watched Bill struggling along dejectedly, but was glad that his improvised shaft support served and contemplated the passage of time that must intervene before they reached Mountain City. And then Bill again stumbled, and stopped as if in despair.