"Get the plane, then."
So they get the plane and tie it to the chalk-line and enter the water again.
Pa comes back along the bank.
He stops for a while and looks at us, hunched, mournful, like a failing steer or an old tall bird.
Vernon and Jewel return, leaning against the current.
"Get out of the way," Jewel says to Dewey Dell.
"Get out of the water."
She crowds against me a little so they can pass, Jewel holding the plane high as though it were perishable, the blue string trailing back over his shoulder.
They pass us and stop; they fall to arguing quietly about just where the wagon went over.
"Darl ought to know," Vernon says.
They look at me.
"I dont know," I says. "I wasn't there that long"
"Hell," Jewel says.
They move on, gingerly, leaning against the current, reading the ford with their feet.
"Have you got a holt of the rope?" Vernon says.
Jewel does not answer.
He glances back at the shore, calculant, then at the water.
He flings the plane outward, letting the string run through his fingers, his fingers turning blue where it runs over them.
When the line stops, he hands it back to Vernon.
"Better let me go this time," Vernon says.
Again Jewel does not answer; we watch him duck beneath the surface.
"Jewel," Dewey Dell whimpers.
"It aint so deep there," Vernon says.
He does not look back.
He is watching the water where Jewel went under.
When Jewel comes up he has the saw.
When we pass the wagon pa is standing beside it; scrubbing at the two mud smears with a handful of leaves.
Against the jungle Jewel's horse looks like a patchwork quilt hung on a line.
Cash has not moved.
We stand above him, holding the plane, the saw, the hammer, the square, the rule, the chalk-line, while Dewey Dell squats and lifts Cash's head.
"Cash," she says;
"Cash."
He opens his eyes, staring profoundly up at our inverted faces. "If ever was such a misfortunate man," pa says.
"Look, Cash," we say, holding the tools up so he can see; "what else did you have?"
He tries to speak, rolling his head, shutting his eyes.
"Cash," we say; "Cash."
It is to vomit he is turning his head.
Dewey Dell wipes his mouth on the wet hem of her dress; then he can speak.
"It's his saw-set," Jewel says.
"The new one he bought when he bought the rule."
He moves, turning away. Vernon looks tip after him, still squatting.
Then he rises and follows Jewel down to the water.
"If ever was such a misfortunate man," pa says.
He looms tall above us as we squat; he looks like a figure carved clumsily from tough wood by a drunken caricaturist.
"It's a trial." he says.
"But I doat begrudge her it.
No man can say I begrudge her it" Dewey Dell-has kid Cash's head back on the folded coat twisting his head a little to avoid the vomit Beside him his tools lie.
"A fellow might call ft lucky it was the same leg he broke when he fell offen that church," pa says.
"But I dont begrudge her it."
Jewel and Vernon are in the river again.