Rocinante responded to my kindness as she must, with purr motor and perfect performance.
In only one thing was I thoughtless, or perhaps overzealous.
I carried too much of everything too much food, too many books, tools enough to assemble a submarine.
If I und sweet-tasting water I filled her tank, and thirty gallons of water weigh three hundred pounds.
A spare container of butane gas for safety's sake weighs seventy-five pounds.
Her spings were deeply depressed but seemingly safe, and on hard-pitching roads I slowed and eased her through, and because of her ready goodness I treated her like the honest bookkeeper, the faithful wife: I ignored her.
And in Oregon on a rainy Sunday, moving through an endless muddy puddle, a right rear tire blew out with a damp explosion.
I have known and owned mean, ugly-natured cars which would have done this thing out of pure evil and malice, but not Rocinante.