“Well, it’ll take the Lord to get her over that river now,” Peabody says. “Anse can’t do it.”
“And I reckon He will,” Quick says. “He’s took care of Anse a long time, now.”
“It’s a fact,” Littlejohn says.
“Too long to quit now,” Armstid says.
“I reckon He’s like everybody else around here,” Uncle Billy says. “He’s done it so long now He can’t quit.”
Cash comes out. He has put on a clean shirt; his hair, wet, is combed smooth down on his brow, smooth and black as if he had painted it on to his head. He squats stiffly among us, we watching him.
“You feeling this weather, ain’t you?” Armstid says.
Cash says nothing.
“A broke bone always feels it,” Littlejohn says. “A fellow with a broke bone can tell it a-coming.”
“Lucky Cash got off with just a broke leg,” Armstid says. “He might have hurt himself bed-rid. How far’d you fall, Cash?”
“Twenty-eight foot, four and a half inches, about,” Cash says. I move over beside him.
“A fellow can sho slip quick on wet planks,” Quick says.
“It’s too bad,” I say. “But you couldn’t a holp it.”
“It’s them durn women,” he says. “I made it to balance with her. I made it to her measure and weight.”