"Oh, I hain't goin' but a little ways," lightly equivocated Mrs. Doggett, "jest yonside the covered bridge, and I guess I can hold Big Money to a walk, that fur."
Once well past the bridge, seated in her present carriage, with her future carriage tagging contentedly behind, Mrs. Doggett in real vexation, drew rein to consider. Her intention had been to stop a few minutes at the house of sickness, then to continue her travels two miles further; but by leaving off her visit to the sick man, crossing the river at a deep ford a hundred yards below the bridge, and driving over a fearfully rocky and steep road, she could cut off three miles of the way.
"Now hain't that the awfulest fix a body ever wuz in!"
She shook her fist at the two black scape-graces that had lain down contentedly when she stopped. "Ef I wuz to go on by town, I wouldn't git to whar I'm goin' by dinner, let alone reskin' bein' tuck up fer a wanderer from the ejut-house! Ef I wuzn't afeerd o' them mean thengs a drowndin' I'd cross the river and take the nigh cut to ole July's. I b'leeve I'll resk hit anyhow!"
She lifted the bundles to the seat beside her, and with shaking fingers clutched the reins, and turned her horse down the steep slope into the river. It was both wide and deep, and in her ignorance of the exact ford, Mrs. Doggett drove a yard below it. The water rose in the bed of the buggy, baptizing her feet: Big Money, when his front feet went down in an unexpected hole, floundered momentarily, but in an instant, he recovered himself and breasted the water gallantly.
When, from the safety of the opposite bank, Mrs. Doggett dared to look back, she was filled with new consternation. The pigs had not crossed, but were running along the bank in evident search of a less watery highway!
"O mercy goodness!" she lamented, "a body can't have no luck, no how! Now Hewitt Jefferson—a claimin' ever'theng that's loose—he'll come along and swear they're his, and I'll never see 'em ag'in! I ought to 'a' tuck 'em back home anyhow!"
In an agony of apprehension, she leaped from her vehicle from whose bed the water was running off in streams.
"Come on Baby! Come on Honey!" she pleaded shrilly: "come on to Mammy!"
The pigs heard and, after a moment's hesitation, came to the edge of the water, plunged in and swam across. When they crawled up the bank and shook themselves, Mrs. Doggett, unmindful of their wet hides, hugged them in her delight, climbed into her buggy, wiped her eyes, and chirruped to Big Money. It was a long hard pull; the highway was a succession of rocky ledges up hill a quarter of a mile, and down hill there was more than a mile of the same rugged road. But the aged and twine-mended harness had mercy on the shaken driver, and held together: Big Money did his best, and the pigs climbed valiantly.