ning a mite and the ground was sloshy and squanchy
under foot. Kate scrunched her hooves and got real balky, not likin' it
a bit. When we got to the top of the pasture she started to whine and
whicker and stamp, and no matter how loud I whoa-ed she kept on
a-stamping and I was plumb scared she'd pitch me off in the mud. Then I
started to smell a funny smell, like somethin' burning. Now, don't ask
me how anything could burn in all that water, because I don't know.

When we came up on the rise I saw the contraption.

Rev'rend, it was the most tarnal crazy contraption I ever saw in my
life. It was bigger nor my cowshed and it was long and thin and as shiny
as Marthy's old pewter pitcher her Ma brought from England. It had a
pair of red rods sticking out behind and a crazy globe fitted up where
the top ought to be. It was stuck in the mud, turned halfway over on the
little slide of roots and rocks, and I could see what had happened, all
right.

The thing must have been--now, Rev'rend, you can say what you like but
that thing must have _flew_ across Shattuck and landed on the slope in
the trees, then turned over and slid down the hill. That must have been
the crash we heard. The rods weren't just red, they were _red-hot_. I
could hear them sizzle as the rain hit 'em.

In the middle of the infernal contraption there was a door, and it hung
all to-other as if every hinge on it had been wrenched halfway off. As I
pushed old Kate alongside it I heared somebody hollering alongside the
contraption. I didn't nohow get the words but it must have been for
help, because I looked down and there was a man a-flopping along in the
water.

He was a big fellow and he wasn't swimming, just thrashin' and
hollering. So I pulled off my coat and boots and hove in after him. The
stream was running fast but he was near the edge and I managed to catch
on to an old tree-root and hang on, keeping his head out of the water
till I got my feet aground. Then I hauled him onto the bank. Up above me
Kate was still whinnying and raising Ned and I shouted at her as I bent
over the man.

Wal, Rev'rend, he sure did give me a surprise--weren't no proper man I'd
ever seed before. He was wearing some kind of red clothes, real shiny
and sort of stretchy and not wet from the water, like you'd expect, but
dry and it felt like that silk and India-rubber stuff mixed together.
And it was such a bright red that at first I didn't see the blood on it.
When I did I