Dannys Own Story | Page 9

and when I get out'n here I'll learn you to ast what did I want to jump in
here fur!"
"You never seen the day you could do it," says Tom Alexander,
meaning the day he could lick him. "And if you feel that way about it
you can stay there fur all of me. I guess a little water won't hurt you
none." And he left the house.
"Elmira," sings out Hank, mad and bossy, "you go get me a ladder!"
But Elmira, her temper riz up too, all of a sudden.
"Don't you dare order me around like I was the dirt under your feet,
Hennerey Walters," she says.
At that Hank fairly roared, he was so mad. He says:
"Elmira, when I get out'n here I'll give you what you won't fergit in a
hurry. I hearn you a-forgiving me and a-weeping over me, and I won't
be forgive nor weeped over by no one! You go and get that ladder."

But Elmira only answers:
"You wasn't sober when you fell into there, Hennerey Walters. And
now you can jest stay in there till you get a better temper on you!" And
all the women says: "That's right, Elmira; spunk up to him!"
They was considerable splashing around in the water fur a couple of
minutes. And then, all of a sudden, a live fish come a-whirling out of
that hole, which he had ketched it with his hands. 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 hands, and she is that surprised she faints. Mis' Primrose, she gets
up and pushes that fish back into the cistern with her foot from the floor
where it had fell, and she says right decided:
"Elmira Walters, that was Elmira Appleton, if you let Hank out'n that
cistern before he has signed the pledge and promised to jine the church
you're a bigger fool 'n I take you to be. A woman has got to make a
stand!" With that she marches out'n our house.
Then all the women sings out:
"Send fur Brother Cartwright! Send fur Brother Cartwright!"
And they sent me scooting acrost town to get him quick. Which he was
the preacher of the Baptist church and lived next to it. And I hadn't got
no lamming yet!

CHAPTER II
I never stopped to tell but two, three folks on the way to Brother
Cartwright's, but they must of spread it quick. 'Cause when I got back
home with him it seemed like the hull town was there. It was along
about dusk by this time, and it was a prayer-meeting night at the church.
Mr. Cartwright told his wife to tell the folks what come to the
prayer-meeting he'd be back before long, and to wait fur him. Which

she really told them where he had went, and what fur. Mr. Cartwright
marches right into the kitchen. All the chairs in our house was into the
kitchen, and the women was a-talking and a-laughing, and they had
sent over to Alexanderses for their chairs and to Rogerses for theirn.
Every oncet in a while they would be a awful bust of language come up
from that hole where that unreginerate old sinner was cooped up in.
I have travelled around considerable since them days, and I have mixed
up along of many kinds of people in many different places, and some of
'em was cussers to admire. But I never hearn such cussing before or
since as old Hank done that night. He busted his own records and riz
higher'n his own water marks for previous times. I wasn't nothing but a
little kid then, and skeercly fitten fur to ad- mire the full beauty of it.
They was deep down cusses, that come from the heart. Looking back at
it after all these years, I can believe what Brother Cartwright said
himself that night, that it wasn't natcheral cussing and some higher
power, like a demon or a evil sperrit, must of entered into Hank's
human carkis and give that turrible eloquence to his remarks. It busted
out every few minutes, and the women would put their fingers into
their ears till a spell was over. And it was personal, too. Hank, he
would listen until he hearn a woman's voice that he knowed, and then
he would let loose on her fambly, going backwards to her grandfathers
and downwards to her children's children. If her father had once stolen
a hog, or her husband done any disgrace that got found out on him,
Hank would put it all into his gineral remarks, with trimmings onto it.
Brother Cartwright, he steps