Danny's Own Story

of had one jest as well as not if Old Hank Walters hadn't been so all-fired, infernal bull-headed about things in ginera

. Then he got up and drawed back his foot unsteady to kick it plumb into kingdom come. Jest then he hearn Elmira opening the door behind him, and he turned his head sudden.

that there basket. All of which, you understand, I am a-telli

she si

nothing! I

basket and looks

I was a crime, "Hennerey Walters, where did you get this here baby?" Sh

ly has brought this basket with him. He tries to think of all the places he has be

k all day." And then he kind o' rouses up

he says, dignified: "So fur as that's consarne

stly was truthful when lickered up, fur that matter, and she knowed it, fur he cou

in that basket but a big thick shawl which had been wrapped all around me, and Elmira often wore it to meeting afterward. She goes inside and she looks at the bottle and me by the light, and

ignoramuses could of told right off that that didn't have nothing to do with me, but was jest the co

Daniel Dunn

ys Hank, feeling

in't no nam

knowed a man oncet whose name was Farmer, and if

says Elmira, quietlike, bu

ays done when he seen trouble coming. When Old Hank was full

er own eye blacked also, the same as usual; but jest the

. They'd lived together a good many years and quarrelled about everything else under the s

and her calling me Dunne. This time he hits her a lick that lays her out and likes to kill her, and it gets him sca

n," says Hank. "H

r got into another row over that. But they finally made it up between em I didn't have no l

, because he got me used to it young, and I hadn't never knowed nothing else. Hank's wife, Elmira, she used to lick him jest about as often as he licked her, and boss him jest as much. So he fell back on me. A man has jest naturally got to have something to cuss

asted him for any he'd of whaled me fur that. Hank's wife, Elmira, had married beneath her, and everybody in our town had come to see it, and used to sympathize with her about it when Hank wasn't around. She'd tell em, yes, it was so. Back in Elmira, New York,

a boy. But Hank, he learnt a little blacksmithing when he was growing up, cause he liked to tinker around and to show how stout he was. Then, when he married Elmira Appleton, he had to go to work practising that p

dreened it, and now it was worth seventy or eighty dollars an acre. Hank, he figgered some one had cheated him. Which the Walterses could of dreened theirn too, only they'd ruther hunt ducks and have fish frys than to dig ditches. All o

s, and only three hundred soles in the hull copperation. Which Hank's shop and our house set in the edge of the woods

he rain water off the roof and scoots it into them. Ourn worked the same, but our cistern was right in under our kitchen floor, and they was a trap door with leather hinges opened in

a fambly custom, which was kep' up in that fambly for a habit. It was a great comfort to Hank, fur all them Walterses was great fish eaters, though it never went to brains. We fed em now and then, and throwed back in th

it was making faces at him. The cistern door was open, and Hank fell in. Elmira was over to town, and I was scared. She had

unbelief but what Hank was a corpse already. So I slams the trap door shut over that there cistern without looking in, fur I hearn Hank flopping around do

nusual way. I hadn't never been licked by a corpse, and didn't rightly know jest what one is, anyhow, being young and comparitive innocent. So I sneaks back in and sets all the flatirons in the house on top of the cistern lid. I hearn some flopping a

rpse," says I

hich she was carrying home from the gineral st

when she grabs holt of me and asts me agin what did I mean I blubbered harder, jest the way a kid will, and says nothing else. I wisht I hadn't set t

by, while Elmira is shaking me and yelling out what did I mean an

s Danny been doing now, Elmira?"

ollers out: "Hank is dead!" and throws her apern over her head and sets

like they is always a lot of women wants to be in them country towns. She run right acrost the road to where the Alexanderses liv

alters

plume on her bunnet which nodded the same as on a hearse, a

and she kneels down and puts her arm around Elmira, which

ead, Elmira? I seen him

it all," s

it happened and where it happened. But I don't want to say nothing ab

drunk, and he done it then, an

him?" she sa

ays she and Elmi

ing about that there cistern

says Mis' Alexander. I nodded m

s turned into a corpse and that makes him dead, what's the difference whether he's in the blacksmith shop or not?" Fur I hadn't had any plain idea, being such a little kid, that a corpse meant to be dead, and wasn't sure what being dead was like, neither, except they had funerals over you then. I knowe

niffling into them. And in a few minutes all them women Mis' Rogers has told come filing into that room, one at a time, looking sad. Only Old Mis' Primrose, she was awful

round and asts me how, except two as is holding onto Elmira's hands which sets moaning in a chair. And they all asts me qu

, you seen him do it i

odd

ked on the outside with a padlock jest now when I come by. He could

ne that myself, so I begun to b

ther one. "It was open when I come by, if the door WAS locked.

asn't nothing el

that there window," says another one to me

idn't say nothing at

e clumb onto that store box and looked in after he seen Hank come down the road and

nodde

im do? How did he kill hims

o-hoos some more. Things was getting pa

er woman. "He clumb onto the forge to tie the rope to one of them rings, and he tied the oth

corpse, all this time; but they kind o' got me to thinking mebby he was hanging out in the shop by the forge, too. And

e woman says,

of opening the door of that

They says to let some of the men open it. And Mis' Alexand

net and go to the kitchen and make it fur her. But Elmira says no, she can't a-bear to think of tea, with poor Hennerey a-han

, for they all wanted some and didn't feel free without she took it too. Whi

he first thing they noticed was them flatirons on top of the cistern door. Mis' Primrose, she says that looks funny. But another woman

up. I was bound to get a lamming purty soon anyhow. When I was a kid I could always bet on that. So they picks up the flatirons, and as they

s sakes alive! Wh

d they was only three or four feet of water in our cistern, and Hank wasn't in scarcely up to his big hairy chest. So when Elmira says the cistern is full of fish, that woman opens the trap door and looks in. Hank thinks it's Elmira come to get him out. He allows he'll keep quiet in there and make believe he is drowned and give her a good scare and make her sorry fur him. But when the cistern door is opened, he hears a lot of clacki

oon a wo

she kicked some more, but she took hern. And each woma

had his good p

ad been said of Hank in th

ed herself on being honest, no mat

eparted wasn't no good, and the hull town knowed it; and Elmira orter feel like it's goo

her women

l shocked. But down in underneath more of em agreed

lifted his hand agin me more'n oncet. But I always stood up to Hennerey, and I fit him back, free and fair and open. I give him as good as he sent on this here earth, and I ain't t

en but Mis' Pri

harder, leaking out tears as fast as she poured tea in. Each one on em tries to find out something good to say

gers, s

ish, Hank Walters was as likely loo

ite, sh

eing Hank, after he'd sold a piece of land, treating the hull town down in Nolan's bar-r

aring it and getting madder and madder all the time. The gineral opinion was that Hank wasn't no good a

ting into the house, and his wif

y ain't nobody hanging in that there blacksmith shop.

etty howdy-do, and

s the c

cet. But for a minute no one thinks mebby little Danny has been egged on to tell lies.

, what do you mean by

eyes is turned on me and Elmira, they comes a voice f

ander, is

s it is Hank's ghost. But one woman says

r, he laughs

ou want to jump i

nd get a ladder, and when I get out'n here I'll le

he could lick him. "And if you feel that way about it you can stay there fur

nk, mad and bossy, "yo

emper riz up too,

like I was the dirt under your f

ly roared, he was

a hurry. I hearn you a-forgiving me and a-weeping over me, and I won

ra only

now you can jest stay in there till you get a better temper on you

ands. It was a big bullhead, and its whiskers around its mouth was stiffened into spikes, and it lands kerplump into Mis' Rogers's lap, a-wiggling, and it kind o' horns her on the hand

he has signed the pledge and promised to jine the church you're a bigger fool 'n I ta

the women

artwright! Send fur

ck. Which he was the preacher of the Baptist church