He knew that sometimes a wheel will run without the burr for
many rods before corning off, and so each time he extended his
search. He traversed the entire half-mile several times, each time
his rage and disappointment getting more bitter. He ground his
teeth in a fever of vexation and dismay.
He had a vision of Agnes waiting, wondering why he did not
come. It was this vision that kept him from seeing the burr in the
wheel-track, partly covered by a clod.
Once he passed it looking wildly at his watch, which was showing
nine o'clock. Another time he passed it with eyes dimmed with a
mist that was almost tears of anger.
There is no contrivance that will replace an axle burr, and
farmyards have no unused axle burrs, and so Will searched. Each
moment he said: "I'll give it up, get onto one of the horses, and go
down and tell her." But searching for a lost axle burr is like
fishing: the searcher expects each moment to find it. And so he
groped, and ran breathlessly, furiously, back and forth, and at last
kicked away the clod that covered it, and hurried, hot and dusty,
cursing his stupidity, back to the team.
It was ten o'clock as he climbed again into the buggy and started
his team on a swift trot down the road.
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