"How'd you like to go in washin', Dunaway, bein's hit's so hot?" he asked, as he hitched his horse to the roadside fence. "I b'leeve I'll go in!"
Dunaway did not particularly relish the idea—it involved the expenditure of some energy—but he politely refrained from objection, and a few minutes later, he and his owner were disrobing behind a clump of elders that hid one of the banks of the Silver Run about fifty yards below the bridge.
Mr. Dunaway was in the deep water, first, enjoying the cool splashing, and swimming toward the bridge, before Mr. Doggett had divested himself of half his garments. This was Mr. Doggett's opportunity. Dunaway had laid his top shirt, his belt, tie, and shoes, apart from his other garments, which fact saved them to him, for when he started in the water, Mr. Doggett remembered other suspicions—unjust or otherwise—that might enter Mrs. Doggett's mind,—suspicions as to possible inhabitants of a vagrant's garments—and in his plunge, accidentally caught his foot in the heap of clothes, sending them into the deep water.
When Dunaway came back to the clump of elders for his clothes, Mr. Doggett was using the cake of laundry soap he held in his hand, in vigorous applications.
"I thought I'd wash my years and neck good while I wuz at hit, Dunaway," he said: "the old lady's mighty perticular. S'pose'n you lay on a little too, hit takes the pike dust off so slick!"
When the two climbed out of the water, Dunaway gazed uncertainly at the spot where had lain his trousers and underwear.
"Where the—" he began. Mr. Doggett interrupted him. "Ef your breeches and thengs hain't gone, Dunaway! That must 'a' been them I stumbled over when I went in! My foot caught on somethin'—I wuz a lookin' at you swimmin' off so peart—and I thought hit wuz a bunch o' grass er somethin'!"
"I guess they're in the bottom of some deep hole by this time," Dunaway remarked in a tone of light regret. "And what am I to wear?"
"Wear?" cried Mr. Doggett: "don't them thengs I got fer you come in handy now? Jest put on a suit them new underin's and a pair them overhalls, and one them hick'ry shirts, and you'll be ready to work in the patch this evenin'!"
It was twelve when Mr. Doggett reached home. "Jest step down in the spreng thar on the creek bank," he said to Dunaway who complained of thirst, "but don't knock over the old lady's milk jairs."