 1 How I come not to have a last name is a question that has always had more or less aggravation mixed up with it. I might have had one just as well as not, if old Hank Walters hadn't been so all fired, infernal, bullheaded about things in general, and his wife Almyra blamed sight worse, and both of them read it a row in a minute's notice and sticked to it for evermore. Hank, he was considerable of a lusher. One Saturday night when he came home from the village in his usual fix, he stumbled over a basket that was sitting on his front steps. Then he got up and drawed back his foot, unsteady, to kick it plumb and the king to become. Just then he, here and Almyra, opened in the door behind him, and he turned his head sudden. But the kick was already started into the air, and when he turns, he can't stop it. And so Hank, as twisted, falls down and steps on himself. That basket lets out a yaw. It's kitten, says Hank, still sitting down and staring at that there basket, all of which you understand I'ma tellin' you from hearsay, as the lords always asks you in court. Almyra, she sings out, "'Kid's a nothin', it's a baby!' and she opens the basket and looks in, and it was me. "'Hannery Walters,' she says, pickin' me up and shakin' me at him like I was a crime. "'Hannery Walters, where did you get this here, baby?' She always calls him Hannery when she is gettin' ready to give him fits. Hank, he scratches his head, for he's kinda confuddled, and thinks maybe he really has brought this basket with him. He tries to think of all the places he has been that night. But he can't think of any place but Bill Nolan's saloon. So he says, "'Almyra, honest, I ain't had but one drink all day.' And then he kinda rouses up a little bit and gets surprised and says, "'Not a baby you got there, Almyra!' And then he says dignified. "'So far as that's concerned. Almyra, where did you get that there, baby?' She looks at him, and she sees he don't really know where I come from. Old Hank mostly was truthful when liquored up for that matter, and she noted, for he couldn't think up no lies except in a general denial when intoxicated up to the gills. Almyra looks into the basket. There was one of them long rubber tubes stringin' out of a bottle that was in it, and I had been suckin' that bottle when interrupted. And there wasn't nothin' else in that basket but a big, thick shawl which had been wrapped all around me. And Almyra often wore it to a meeting afterward. She goes inside, and she looks at the bottle and me by the light. And old Hank, he comes stumbling in afterward, and sets down in a chair and waits to get Hail Columbia for comin' home in that shape, so he's can row back again like they done every Saturday night. Load in the glass of the bottle was the name. Daniel, Dunn, and Company. Anybody but them two old ignoramuses could've told right off that that didn't have nothin' to do with me, but was just a company that made them kind of bottles. But she reads it out loud three or four times, and then she says, "'His name is Daniel Dunn,' she says. "'And Company,' says Hank, feelin' right quarrelsome. "'Company ain't no name,' says she. "'Why, ain't it? I'd like to know,' says Hank. "'I know no man once whose name was Farmer. "'And if a farmer's a name, why ain't Company named two? "'His name is Daniel Dunn,' says Almyra quiet like, but not dodgin' around, neither. "'And Company,' says Hank, gettin' into his feet, like he always done when he seen trouble comin'. When old Hank was full of liquor, he know'd just the ways to aggravate her the worst. She mighta banged him one the same as usual and got her own eye black to also same as usual, but just then I let's out another big y'all, and she gave me some milk. I guess the only reason they ever kept me at first was so they could crawl about my name. They lived together a good many years and crawled about everything else under the sun and was runnin' out of subjects. I knew subjects kinda briskin' things up for a while, but finally they went too far with it one time. I was about two years old then, and he was still callin' me Company, and her callin' me Dunn. This time he hits her lick that lays her out and likes to kill her, and it gets him scared. But she gets around again after a while, they both see it has went too far that time, and so they make sup. "'Am I right, I give in,' says Hank. "'His name is Dunn.' "'No,' says she, tender like. "'You was right, Hank. "'His name is Company.' So they pretty near got into another row over that, but they finally made it up between them. I didn't have no last name, and they just call me Danny, which they both done faithful ever after,' has agreed. Old Hank, he was a blacksmith, and he used to lamb me considerable, him and his wife not havin' any kids their own to lick. He'd lamb me when he was drunk, and he wailed me when he was sober. I never held it up beginin' much, neither not for a good many years, because he got me used to it young, and I hadn't never known nothin' else. Hank's wife, Elmira, she used to lick him just about as often as he licked her, and boss him just as much. So he fell back on me. A man has just naturally got to have some to cuss around on boss, so as to keep himself from findin' out he don't amount to nothin'. Least ways most men is like that, and Hank, he didn't amount to much, and he kinda noted way down deep in his inmost gizzards, and it were a comfort to him to have me around. But there was one thing he never sought no store by, and I got long now to where I hold that up again and mourn all the lickings he ever done. That was book-learnin'. He never had none himself, and he was sought again it, and it never made me get none, and if I'd ever asked him for any, he'd avail me for 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 him, yes, it was so. Back in Elmira, New York, from which her father and mother come to our part of Illinois in the early days, her father had kept a hotel, and they was stylish kinda folks. When she was born, her mother was homesick for all that stylin' for New York Stateways, and so she named her Elmira. But when she married Hank, he had considerable land. His father had left it to him, but it was all swamp land, and so Hank's father, he hunted more than he farmed, and Hank and his brothers done the same when he was a boy. But Hank, he learned a little blacksmith in 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 practice in that profession regular, because he never learned nothin' about farming. He'd sell 15 or 20 acres every now and then, and they'd be high times till he'd spent it up, and maybe Elmira would get some new clothes. When I was found on the doorstep, the land was all gone, and Hank was practicing regular when not busy cussin' out the fellas that had bought the land. For some smart fellas had come along and bought up all that swamp land and dreamed it, and now it was worth $70 or $80 an acre. Hank, he figured someone had cheated him, which the Walters could've dreamed there in two, only they'd rather hunt ducks and have fish fries than to dig ditches, all of which are here now, Elmira talkin' over with the neighbors more and once when I was growin' up, and they all says, how sad it is you have come to this, Elmira? And then she kinda smuck up and says, thanks to Gloria, she kept her pride. Well, there was worse places to live in than that there little town, even if there wasn't no railroad within eight miles and only 300 souls in the whole corporation, which Hank's shoppin' our house set in the edge of woods just outside the cooperation line, so as the city marshal didn't have no authority to arrest him after he'd crossed it. There was one thing in that house I always admired when I was a kid, and that was a big cistern. Most people had their cisterns outside their house, and they as a tin pipe takes all the rainwater off the roof and scoots it into them. All worked the same, but our cistern was right in under our kitchen floor, and there was a trap door with leather hinges open into right by the kitchen stove, but that wasn't why I was so proud of it. It was because that cistern was just plumb full of fish, bullheads and red horses, sunfish and other kinds. Hank's father had built that cistern, and one time he brung home some live fish in a bucket and dumped them in there, and they growed, and they multiplied in there, and refurnished the earth. So that cistern had got to be a family custom, which was kept up in that family for a habit. It was a great comfort to Hank for all them Walters's was great fish-eaters, though it never went to brains. We fed him now and then, and throwed back in the little ones till they was growed and kept the dead ones picked out as soon as we smelled anything wrong, and it never hurt the water none. And when I was a kid, I wouldn't have took anything for living in a house like that. Once when I was a kid, about six years old, Hank come home from the bar room. He got to chasing Elmira's cat because he says 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 always told me not to fool around there and none when I was a little kid, for if I fell in there, I'd be a corpse quicker and scat. So when Hank fell in and I heard him splash, being only a little fella and awful scared because Elmira had always made it so strong, I had no sort of disbelief but what Hank was a corpse already. So I slams the trapdoor shut over that there cistern without looking in, for I heard Hank flopping around down in there. I had never heard a corpse flop before and didn't know but what it might be somehow injurious to me and I wasn't going to take no chances. So I went out and played in the front yard and waited for Elmira, but I couldn't seem to get my mind settled on playing. I was a horse nor nothing. I kept thinking maybe Hank's corpse is going to come flopping out of that cistern to wail me some unusual way. I had never been licked by a corpse and didn't rightly know just what one is anyhow, being young and comparative innocent. So I sneaks back in and sets all the flat irons in the house on top of the cistern lid. I hear some flopping and splashing and spluttering like Hank's corpse is trying to jump up and is falling back into the water. And I hear Hank's voice and got scared her yet and when Elmira came along down the road, she sees me by the gate of crying and she asks me why. Hank's corpse says I blubbering. A corpse says Elmira dropping her coffee when she was carrying home from the general store in a post office. Danny, what do you mean? I seen I was to blame somehow and I wished then I hadn't said nothing about Hank being a corpse and I made up my mind I wouldn't say nothing more. So when she grabs hold of me and asked me again what did I mean I blubbered harder just the way a kid will and says nothing else. I wish I hadn't set them flat irons on that door before it came to me all at once that if Hank has turned into a corpse I ain't got any right to keep him in that cistern. Just then old Miss Rogers, which is one of our neighbors comes by while Elmira is shaking me and yelling what did I mean and how did it happen and had I saw it and where was Hank's corpse? Hey Miss Rogers, she says what's Danny been doing now Elmira? Me being always up to something. Elmira, she turned around and seen her and she gives a whoop and then I was out. Hank is dead and throws her apron over her head and sits right down in the path and boo-hoo's like a baby. And I beller's louder. Miss Rogers, she never waited to ask nothing more. She's seen she had a piece of news and she's bound to be the first to spread it like there is always a lot of women wants to be in them country towns. She run right across the road to where the Alexanders has lived. Miss Alexander, she's seen her coming and unhooked the screen door and Miss Rogers, she hollers out before she reached the porch. Hank Walters is dead. And then she went footing it up the street. There was a black plume on her bonnet which nodded the same as on a hearse and she was into and out of seven front yards at five minutes. Miss Alexander, she runs across the street to where we was and she kneels down and puts her armor on Elmira which was still rocking back and forth in the path and she says, how do you know he's dead Elmira? I seen him not more than an hour ago. Danny's seen it all says Elmira. Miss Alexander turned to me and wants to know what happened and how it happened and where it happened. But I didn't want to say nothing about that sister so I bust out beller and fresher and ever and says he was drunk and he come home drunk and he done it then and that's how he cone it I says. And you seen him she says, I nodded. Where is he says she and Elmira both to once but I was scared to say nothing about that there sister so I just bought some more. Was it in the blacksmith shop says Miss Alexander. I nod my head again and let it go at that. Is he in there now? Asked Miss Alexander, I nodded again. I hadn't meant to give out no untrue stories but a kid will always tell a lie not meaning to tell one if you sort of invite him with questions like that and get him scared the way you're acting. Besides I says to myself so long as Hague has turned into a corpse and that makes him dead what's the difference whether he's in the blacksmith shop or not. For 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 know being a corpse must be some sort of a big disadvantage from the way Elmira always says keep away from that sister and door or I'll be one but they was gonna be a funeral in our house. I feel kind of important too. They didn't have them every day in our town and we had never had one of our own. So Miss Alexander she led Elmira into the house both a crying and Miss Alexander trying to comfort her and me tagging along behind holding onto Elmira's skirts as sniffling into them and in a few minutes all them women Mrs. Rogers had told come filing into that room one at a time looking sad. Only old Miss Primrose she was awful late getting there because she stopped to put on her bonnet. She always wore the funerals with the black Paris lace on it and her cousin Armenti White had sent her from Chicago. When they found out Hank had come home with liquor in him and done it himself they was all excited and they all crowds around and asked me how except two as he's holding on to Elmira's hands which sets Mona in a chair and they all asked me questions as to what I've seen him do which if they hadn't I wouldn't have told him the lies I did but they egged me on to it says one woman Danny you seen him do it in the blacksmith's shop? I nodded but how did he get in? Sings out another woman. The door was locked on the outside with the padlock just now when I come by. He couldn't have killed himself in there and locked the door on the outside. I didn't see how he could have done that myself so I began to ball again said nothing at all. He must have crawled through that little side window says another one. It was open when I come by if the door was locked. Did you see him crawl through the little side window Danny? I nodded. There was nothing else for me to do but you ain't tall enough to look through that there window says another one of me. How could you see into that shop Danny? I didn't know so I didn't say nothing at all. I just sniffled. There's a store box right in under that window says another one. Danny must have clumped onto that store box and looked in after he seen him come down the road and crawl through the window. Did you scramble into the store box and look in Danny? I just nodded again. And what was it you seen him do? How did he kill himself? They all asked once. I didn't know so I just bellers and boohoo some more. Things was getting past anything I could see the way out of. He might have hung himself to one of the iron rings in the jist above the forge says another woman. He clumped onto the forge to tie the rope to one of them rings and he tied the other end round his neck and then he stepped off in the forge. Was that how he done it Danny? I nodded and then I bellered louder than ever. I knowed Hank was down in there cistern, a corpse and a might of wet corpse all this time but they kinda got me thinking maybe he was hanging in the shop all by that forge too. And I guess I better stick to the shop store not wanting to say nothing about that cistern no sooner or not could help it. Pretty soon one woman says kind of shivery. I don't want to have the job of opening the door of that Plaxmas shop the first one. Well they all kind of shivered then and looked at Elmira. They says to let some of the men open it and Miss Alexander she says she'll run home and tell her husband right off. And all the time Elmira is moaning in that chair. One woman says Elmira ought to have a cup of tea which she'll lay off her bunnet and go to the kitchen and make it for her. But Elmira says no. She can't a bear to think of tea with poor Henry hanging out there in the shop but she was kind of enjoying all the fuss being made over her too. And all the other woman says poor thing. But all the same they was mad she didn't want any tea for they all wanted some and didn't feel free without she took it too. Which she said she would after they'd coaxed a while and made her see her duty. So they all goes out to the kitchen bringing along some of the best room chairs. Elmira coming too and me tagging along behind. And the first thing they noticed was the flat irons on top of the cistern door. Miss Primrose, she says that looks funny. But another woman speaks up and says Danny must have been playing with them while Elmira was over town. She says was you playing they was horses Danny? I was feeling considerable like a liar by this time but I says I was playing horses with them for I couldn't see no use in hurrying things up. I was bound to get a lamb pretty soon anyhow. When I was a kid I could always bet on that. So they picks up the flat irons and as they picks them up they come a splash of noise in the cistern. I thinks to myself, Hank's corpse will be out there in a minute. One woman she says, goodness gracious sakes alive. What's that Elmira? Elmira says that cistern is mighty full of fish and there's some great big ones in there and there must be some of them floppin' around. Which if they hadn't have been all worked up and talkin' all to once and all thinkin' of Hank's body hangin' out there in the blacksmith's shop they might have suspicion something. For that floppin' hip up steady and a lot of splashin' too. I maybe order mentioned sooner it had been a dry summer and 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 a trapdoor and looks in. Hank thinks it's Elmira come to get him out. He allows her to keep quiet in there and make believe he is drownin' and give her a good scare and make her sorry for him. But when the cistern door is open he hears a lot of clacking tongues all of a sudden like there was a hand convention on. He allows she has told some of the neighbors and he'll scare them too. So Hank he laid low and the woman as looks in sees nothin' for it's as dark down there as the insides of the well with swallowed Noah. But she leaves the door open and goes on a makin' tea and they ain't scarcely a sound from the cistern only little ripply noises like it might have been fish. Pretty soon a woman says, it has drawed Elmira won't you have a cup? Elmira she kicks some more but she took her and each woman took her and one woman sippin' of her and she says the department had his good pints Elmira which was the best thing had been said to Hank in that time for years and years. Hold miss Primrose she always prided herself on being honest no matter what come and she ups and says, I don't believe no hypocritics at a time like this no more no other time. The department wasn't no good and the whole town noted and Elmira ought to feel like it's good or it's a bad rubbish and them is my sentiments and the sentiments of rightfulness. All the other women sings out, why miss Primrose I never and they seemed awful shocked but down in underneath more of them agreed than let on. Elmira she wiped her eyes and she said, Henry and me has had our troubles they ain't no use in denying that miss Primrose it has often been given take between us and betwixt us and the whole town knows he has lifted his hand or gave me more than once but I always stood up to Henry and I fit him back free and fair and open I give him as good as he sent in this here earth and I ain't the one to carry no animosities beyond the grave. I forgive Hank all the orneryness he done me and there was a lot of it as he's becoming unto a church member which he never was and all the women but miss Primrose they says Elmira Appleton you have got a Christian spirit which done her a heap of good and she cried considerable harder leaking out tears as fast as she poured tea in. Each one on them tries to find out something good to say about Hank only there wasn't much they could say and Hank and that their sister listened to every word of it. Miss Roger she says before he took to drinking like a fish Hank Walters was as likely looking a young fellow as I ever see. Miss White she says well Hank he never was a stingy man know how often and often White has told me about seeing Hank after he sold a piece of land treating the whole town down in Nolan's bar room just as come easy go easy as if it wasn't money he ordered paid his honest debts with. They sat there that way telling what good pints they could think of for 10 minutes and Hank of hearing it and getting madder and madder all the time. The general opinion was that Hank wasn't no good and was better done for and no matter what they said them feelings kept sticking out through the words. By and by time Alexander came busting it in the house and his wife Miss Alexander was with him. Well some matter with all you folks he says they ain't nobody hanging in that there blacksmith shop I broke the door down on winning and it was empty. Then there was a pretty how to do and they all sings out where's the corpse and some things maybe someone has cut it down and took it away and all gabbles to once but for a minute no one thinks maybe little Danny has been egged on to tell lies. Little Danny ain't saying a word but Elmira she grabs me and shakes me and she says you little liar you what do you mean by that tell you told? I think that lamb is about to do now but whilst all eyes are turned on me and Elmira they comes a voice from that cistern it is Hank's voice and he sings out Tom Alexander is that you? Some of the women scream for some things it is Hank's ghost but one woman says what would a ghost be doing in a cistern? Tom Alexander he laughs and he says what in place do you want to jump in there for Hank? You dirt-idget says Hank you quit mocking me and got a ladder and when I get out in here I'll learn you to ask what did I want to jump in here for? You never seen the day you could do it says Tom Alexander meaning the day you could lick him and if you feel that way about it you could stay there for all of me I guess a little water won't hurt you none and he left the house. Elmira sings out Hank Madden boss you go get me a ladder but Elmira her temper is up to all of a sudden don't you dare order me around like I was a dirt under your feet Henry Walter she says at that Hank fairly roared he was so mad he says Elmira when I get out in here I'll give you what you won't forget in a hurry I hear new of forgiving me in a weeping over me and I won't be forgiven or weaped over by no one you're gonna get that ladder but Elmira only answers you was a sober one you fell into there Henry Walter's and now you can just stand 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 for a couple of minutes and then all of a sudden a live fish come a whirling out that hole which he had catched it with his hands it was a big bull head and its whiskers around its mouth was stiffened into spikes and it lands kerplump on a Miss Roger's lap a wiggling and it kind of horns her on the hands and she is that surprised she faints Miss Primrose she gets up and pushes that fish back into the cistern with her foot from the floor where it had failed and she says right to side it Elmira Walters that was Elmira Appleton if you let Hank out on that cistern before he has signed the pledge and promised to join the church you're a bigger fool and I take you to be a woman has got to make a stand with that she marches out in our house then all the women sings out send for brother Cartwright send for brother Cartwright and they sent me scooting across 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 lambing yet end of chapter one recording by Dan Kaufman at www.dancoffman.net chapter two of Danny's Own Story this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Dan Kaufman Danny's Own Story by Don Marquis chapter two I never stopped to tell about two or three folks on the way to brother Cartwright's but they must have spread it quick because when I got back home with him it seemed like the whole town was there it was long 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 a wait for him which he really told them where he had went and what for Mr. Cartwright marches right into the kitchen all the chairs in our house was into the kitchen and a woman was talking and laughing and they had sent over the Alexander's is for their chairs and the Rogers is for there every once in a while they would be awful bust of language come up from the hole where the unregenerate oil center was cooped up in I've traveled around considerable since then days and I've mixed up along with many kinds of people in many different places and some of them was cussers to admire but I never heard such cussing before or since as old Hank done that night he busted his own records and risen hiring his own watermarks for previous times I wasn't nothing but a little kid then and scarcely fitting for to admire 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 was a natural cussing and some higher power like a demon or evil spirit must have entered into Hank's human carcass and give that terrible eloquence to his remarks it busted out every few minutes and the woman would put their fingers in their ears till spell was over and it was personal too Hank, he would listen until he heard a woman's voice that he knowed and then he would let loose on her family getting 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 on to his general remarks with trimmings on to it Brother Cartwright, he steps up to the hole in the floor when he first comes in and says gentle, I can soothe him like an undertaker when he tells you where to sit at a home funeral Brother Walters Brother Hank yells out don't you brother me you sniffling psalms and y'all are face pigeon-toed hypocrite you get me a letter, God darn you and I'll come out and hear and learn you to brother me I will only that wasn't nothing to what Hank really said to that preacher no more like it enough little yaller fluffy canaries like a buzzer Brother Walters says the preacher, calm but firm we have all decided that you ain't gonna come out of that cistern till you sign the pledge and Hank tells him what he thinks of pledges and him and church dunes and it wasn't pretty and he says if he was as deep in eternal fire as what he now is in rainwater and every fish that nibbles at his toes was a preacher with a red-hot pitchfork a jabbing atom they could jab till the hole here after turning to snow before he'd ever signed nothing a man like Mr. Cartwright give him to sign Hank was snubberter than any mule he ever nailed shoes onto and proud of being that stubborn that town was awful religious town and Hank he knowed he was called the most on religious man in it and he was proud of that too and if anyone called him a heathen it just plum tickled him all over Brother Walters says that preacher we are going to pray for you and they done it they brought all them chairs close up around that cistern in a ring and they all kneeled down there with their heads on them and they prayed for Hank's salvation they did it up in style too one at a time and the other singing out amen every now and then and they shed tears on Hank the front yard was crowded with men and all a laughing and a talking and chowing and spitting tobacco and betting how long Hank would hold out old Sir Emery that was a city marshal and always wore a big nickel-plated style was out there with him C was in a sweat cause Bill Knoll and that run the bar room and some more Hank's friends or his near friends as he had was out in the road they says to see he must arrest that preacher for Hank is being gradual murdered in that there water and he'll die if he is held there too long and it will be a crime only they didn't come into the yard to say it amongst us religious folks but see he says he doesn't arrest no one because it is outside the town of cooperation but he's considerable worried too about what his duty ought to be pretty soon that gang that Mrs. Carrot has rounded up at the Paramean comes stringing along in they'd all brung their hymn books with them and they sung the whole town was there then and they all sung and they sung revival hymns over Hank and Hank would just cuss and cuss every time he bust down to another cuss and spell they would start another hymn finally the man out in the front yard got warmed up too and begun to sing all but Bill Nolan's crowd and they gave Hank up for lost and went away disgusted the first thing you know they was a regular revival meeting there and that preacher was preaching a regular revival sermon I've been to more than one camp meeting but for just naturally taken hold of the whole human race by the slack of its pants and dangling of it over a hail fire I never hear nothing could come up to that their sermon two or three old backsliders in the crowd come right up and repent it all over again on the spot the whole kill and villain of them got the power good and hard like the dozen camp meetings and revivals but Hank he only cussed he was obstinate Hank was and his pride and anger had risen finally he says you're taking an ordinary low down advantage at me you are let me out in this here sister and I'll show you will stick it out long it's on dry land during your religious hides some of the folks there hadn't had no suppers so after all the other sinners but Hank had either got converted or else sneaked away some of the women says why not make a kind of love feast out of it and bring some vitals like they does to church sociables because it seems like the Satan is gonna wrestle all night long like he done with the angel Jacob and they ought to be prepared so they done it they went and they came back with vitals and they made up hot coffee and they feasted in that preacher in their cells and Elmira and me all right in Hank's hearing and Hank was getting hungry himself and he was cold in that water and the fish was nibbling at him and he was getting cussed out and weak and soap full of despair and there wasn't no way for him to sit down and rest and he was scared of getting a cramp in his legs and sinking down with his head underwater and being drowned he said afterward he had done the last with pleasure if there was any way of suing that crowd for murder so long about 10 o'clock he sings out I give in gosh darn you, I give in let me out and I'll sign your pesky pledge Brother Cartwright was forgetting a ladder and letting him climb out right away but Elmira she says don't you do it Brother Cartwright don't you do it you don't know Hank Walters like I does if he once gets out of there before he signed that pledge he won't never sign it so they fixed it up that Brother Cartwright was to write out a pledge on the inside of the leaf of the Bible and tie that Bible onto a string and let it pencil onto another string and let the strings down to Hank and he was make his mark for he couldn't write and they was to be pulled up again Hank he says all right and they done it but just as Hank was making his mark on the leaf of that book the preacher done what I always thought was a mean trick he was lying on the floor with his head and shoulders into that hole as far as he could holding a lantern way down into it so as Hank could see and just as Hank made that mark he spoke some words over him and then he says now Henry Walters I have baptized you and you are a member of the church you'd have thought Hank would have broke out and cussing again at being took and unexpected that away for he hadn't really agreed to nothing but sign the pledge but an area cuss he just says now you get that ladder they got it and he clumped up into the kitchen dripping and shivering you wouldn't baptize me in that water he asked the preacher the preacher says he has then says Hank you done a load on trick on me you know what I was made my brags I never gined no church no never would John you know what I was proud of that you know that it was my glory to tell of it and that I set a heap of store by it in every way and now you went and took it away from me you never fought it out fair and square neither man playing to outlast man like you done with this here pledge but you sneaked it in on me when I wasn't looking there was a lot of men in that crowd that thought the preacher and went too far and sympathize with Hank the way he done about that hurt brother cart right in our town and there was a split in the church because some said it wasn't regular and wasn't binding he lost his job after a while and became an evangelist which doesn't make no difference what one of them does know how but Hank he always thought he had been baptized regular and he never was the same afterward he had made his lifelong brags and his pride was broken that there one particular spot and he sawered and grieved over it a good deal and got grouchier and grouchier and meaner and meaner and a liquor offener if anything sign that pledge couldn't hold Hank he was worse in every way after that night and the sister and took to lambing me harder and harder End of chapter two recording by Dan Kaufman www.dancoffman.net Chapter three of Danny's Own Story this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Dan Kaufman Danny's Own Story by Don Marquis Chapter three well all the lamings Hank laid on never done me any good it seemed like I was just naturally cut out to have no success in life and no amount of welling could change it though Hank he was faithful before I was 12 years old the whole town had seen it and there wasn't nothing else expected me except not to be any good that had its handy sides to it too there was lots of kids there that had to go to school but Hank he never would have let me done that if I had asked him and I never asked it and there was lots of kids considerably bothered all the time with their parents and relations they made him go to Sunday school and wash up regular all over on Saturday nights and put on shoes and stockings part of the time even in the summer and someone had to ask to go and swimmin and the whole thing was a continuous trouble and privation to him but there wasn't nothing predicted of me and I'd done like it was predicted everybody loud from the start that Hank would have made trash out of me even if I hadn't showed all the signs of being trash anyhow and if they was devil meant anywhere about that town they all says Danny he done it and like it's not I has so I gets to be what you might call an outcast all the kids whose folks ain't trash their mothers tells them not to run with me no more which they done it all the more for that reason on the sly and it makes me more important with them but when I gets a little bigger all that makes me feel kind of bad sometimes it ain't so handy then for folks could send when I would come around Danny what do you want if I says nothing they would say well then you get out of here which they needn't have been suspicion in nothing like they pretended they did for I never stole nothing more and warder millions and much millions in such truck and maybe now and then a chicken us kids used to roast in the woods on Sundays and just as like as not it was one of Hank's hands then which I figured out it earned it for Hank he had streaks when he'd worked me considerable hard he never give me any money for it he loathed a lot too and when he loathed I'd loath but I did pick up right smart of handiness with tools around there that shop of his in and if he'd ever abused me right I might have turned into a pretty fair blacksmith but it wasn't no use trying to work for Hank when I was about 15 times as right bad around the house for a spell and Elmira is working pretty hard not thanks to myself well these folks has kind of brung you up and you ain't never done more than Hank made you do maybe you ought to stick to work a little more when there's a job in the shop even if Hank don't which I tried it for about two or three years doing as much work around the shop as Hank done and maybe more but it wasn't no use one day when I'm about 18 I seen awful plane I'd have to light out from there there was a circus coming to town that day I says to Hank Hank there is a circus this afternoon and again tonight so I was hearing says Hank are you going to it says I I'm out says Hank and then again I'm out I don't see us as no concerns of yarn know how I know who he was going though Hank he never missed a circus well I says they want no harm to ask was they well you've asked it ain't you says Hank well then says I'd like to go to that there circus myself they know you should be saying for you not to go says Hank for you would go anyhow he always does go off when you is needed but I ain't got no money I says and I was going to ask you could you spare me half a dollar great to host the fastest Hank but ain't you getting stuck up what's the matter of you crawling in under the tent like you always done first thing I know you'll be wanting a pair of these here yaller shoes in a stove pipe hat no says I ain't no dude Hank and you know it but there's always things about a circus spend money on besides just a circus herself there's a side show for instance and they is the grand concert afterward I calculated I take them all in this year the whole dirt thing just for once Hank he looks at me like I asked for a house and a lot of a million dollars or something like that but he don't say nothing he just snorts Hank I says I've been doing right smart work around the shop for two, three years now if you wasn't loafing so much you'd have noticed it more and I never asked for a cent of pay for it nor you ain't worth no pay says Hank you ain't worth nothing but to eat vitals and wear out clothes well I says I figure I earn my vitals and a good deal more and as far as clothes go I never had no one on my arm made out in your who brung you up that's Hank you've done it says I and by your own say so done a darn poor job at it you go to that there circus says Hank a flaring up and I'll lambaste you up to each of your life so far as handling out money for you to sling it to the dogs I ain't no bank and if I was I ain't no idiot but you just let me hear of you even going now that circus lot and all the lambings you has ever got rolling to one won't be a miserable little circumstance to what you will get they ain't no leather faced young upstart with the weeping willow hail going to throw up to me how I brung him up that's gratitude for you that is says Hank if it hadn't been for me giving you a home when I found you first where would you have been now well I says I might have been a good deal better off if you hadn't took me in the Alexandria's as would have and I wouldn't have been kept out of school and grown up in Ignoramus like you is I never had no trouble keeping you away from school I noticed says Hank with a snort this is the first thing I ever hear you want to go there which was true in one way and a lie in another I had never wanted to go till lately but he'd have lamb me if I had wanted to he always said he would and I was too big and noted well Hank he never give me no money so I'll watch as much chance that afternoon and slips in under the tent same as always and I lays low under them green benches and wiggle through when I seen a good chance the first person I seen was Hank course he seen me and he shook his fist at me in a promising kind of way and there wasn't no trouble figuring out what he meant for a while didn't enjoy the circus to no extent for I was thinking that if Hank tries to lick me for it I'll find him back this time which I had never fit him back much yet for fear he'd pick up some iron around the shop and just naturally leave me cold with it I got home before Hank did it was not sundown and I was waiting in the door in the shop for Elmira to holler wheels is ready and Hank come along he didn't waste no time he steps inside the shop and he takes down a strap and he says you come here and take off your shirt but I just moves away Hank he runs in on me and he swings a strap I throw it up my arm and it cut me across the knuckles I run in on him and he dropped a strap and fetched me in an open-handed smack plum on the mouth that jarred my head back and locked to a busted loose then I got right mad and I run onto him again and this time I got to him and I wrestled with him well sir I never was so surprised at all my life before for I hadn't had a hold of him more in a minute before I seen I'm stronger than Hank is I throwed him and he hit the ground with considerable of a jar and then I put my knee in the pit of his stomach and churned it a couple and I think to myself what a fool I must have been for better a year because I might have done this anytime I got him by the ears and I slammed his head into the gravel a few times him are reaching for my throat and a pound on me with his fists but me had taken a licks and keeping hold and I had a mighty contested time for a few minutes there on top of Hank chuckling myself and batting him one every now and then for luck and trying to make him holler it's enough but Hank is stubborn he won't holler and pretty soon I think what am I going to do for Hank will be so mad when I let him up he'll just naturally kill me without a kill him and I was scared because I don't want neither one of them things to happen whilst I was thinking it over and getting scarier and scarier and banging Hank's head harder and harder someone grabs me from behind they was two of them and one gets my collar and one gets to see my pants and they drug me off on him Hank he gets up and then he sets down sudden on a horse block and wipes his face on his sleeve which they was considerable blood come onto the sleeve and looks around to see who has had hold of me and it is two men one of them looks about seven feet tall on the count of a big plug hat and long white linen duster and has a beautiful red beard in the road they is a big stout road wagon with a canopy top over it pulled by two horses and on the wagon box there's a strip of canvas which I couldn't read then what was rode on the canvas but I learned later it said in big print seawash Indian sagraw nature's universal medicinal specific discovered by Dr. Hartley L. Kirby among the aborigines of Oregon on a count of being so busy neither Hank nor me had here in the wagon come along the road and stop the big man in the plug hat he says or they was worse that effect just as serious why you mauling that age of gent well says he needed it considerable but says he's still more some the good book says to honor thy father and thy mother well I says maybe it does and maybe it don't but he ain't my father know how and he ain't been getting no more in his comeuppings friendrens his mind sayeth the Lord the big man remarks very serious Hank he reads up then and he says mister be you a preacher cause if you be the sooner you have drawn the better for you I got a grudge against all preachers that fellow he just looks Hank over calm and easy and slow before answers and he wrinkles up his face like he never seen anything like Hank before then it fetches a kind of aggravating smile and he says beneath the shady chestnut tree the village blacksmith stands the smith the pleasant soul as he with warts upon his hands he stares to hang hard and solemn and serious while he's saying that poetry at him Hank fidgets and turns his eyes away but the fellow touches him on the breast with his finger and makes him look at him my honest friend says the fellow I am not a preacher not right now and I know my mission is spreading the glad tidings of good health look at me and he swells his chest up and keeps a hold of Hank's eyes with his and you behold before we discover manufacturer and proprietor or seawash Indian sagraw nature's own remedy for Bratz disease rheumatism liver and kidney trouble katar consumption bronchitis ringworm aresopellus lung fever typhoid crook dandruff stomach trouble dyspepsia and there was a lot more of them well since Hank's sort of backing up as the big man come near and near to him just naturally bully ragged him with them eyes I got none of them there complaints the doctor he kind of snarls and he brings his hand down hard on Hank's shoulder and he says there are more things between Stan and Beersheba than was ever dreamt of not sagacity Romeo or there was words of that effect for that doctor was just plumb full of scripture quotations and he sings out sudden giving Hank a shove that nearly pushes him over man alive he yells you don't know what disease you may have men is the strong man I've seen rejoicing in his strength that the donor day cut down like the grass in the field before sunset he says Hank he's trying to look the other way but that doctor won't let his eyes wiggle away from his in he says very sharp stick out your tongue Hank he sticks her out the doctor he takes some glasses out in his pocket and puts them on and it fetches a long look at her and he opens his mouth like he was going to say something and shuts it again like his feelings won't let him he puts his arm across Hank's shoulder affectionate and sad and then it turns his head away like they was someone dead in the family finally he says I thought so I saw it in your eyes when I first drove up I hope he says very mournful I haven't come too late Hank he turns pale I was getting sorry for Hank myself I see now why I licked him so easy and one could have told from that doctor's actions Hank was as good as a dead man already but Hank he makes a big effort and he says shucks I'm 68 years old doctor and I ain't never had a sick day in my life but he was awful and easy too the doctor he says to the fella with him Louie bring me one of the sample size Louie brung it the doctor never taken his eyes off in Hank he handed to Hank and he says I'll whisk a glass full three times a day my friend and there is a good chance for even you I give it to you without money and without price but what have I got as Hank you have spinal meningitis says the doctor never batting an eye well this here cure me says Hank it'll cure anything says the doctor Hank he says shucks again but he took the bottle and pulled the cork out and smelt it right thoughtful and what them fellas had stopped at our place for was to have the shoe of the Nihosses off hind foot nailed on which it was most ready to drop off Hank he done it for a regulation dollar size bottle and they drove on into the village right after supper I goes downtown they was in front of Smith's Palace Hotel they was just starting up when I got there well sir their doctor was a sight he didn't have his duster on to him but his stovepipe hat was and one of them long Prince Alfred coats nearly to his knees and shiny shoes but his vet was cut out a holler fur to show his bile shirt and it was the pink shirt I ever see and in the middle of that there was a diamond as big as Uncle Pat's Hickey's win and what was out of the town sights no sir they never was a man with more genuine fashionableness sticking out all over him than Dr. Kirby he just fairly wallored in it I had paid no particular attention to the other fella with him when they stopped at our place except to notice he was kind of slim and black-haired and fun and complexed but I see now I order a look closer probably dad binged if he weren't an engine then he sat under that there gasoline lamp the wagon was all lit up with with moxons on and beads and shells all over him and the gaudiest turquoise tail of feathers rain born down from his head he ever see and a blanket around him that was gaudier than the feathers and he's shining rattled every time he moved that wagon was a whole opera house to itself it was rolled out in front of Smith's Palace Hotel without the Hosses the front part was filled with bottles of medicine the doctor he begun business by taking out a long brass horn and tooting on it they was about a dozen come but they was mostly boys then him and the engine picked up some banjos and sung a comic song out loud and clear and there was another dozen or so come and they sang another song and Pop Wilkins he closed up the post office and came over and the other two veterans of the Grand Army of the Republicans that always played checkers in there and nights come along with him but it wasn't much of a crowd the doctor he looked sort of worried I had a good place right near behind Wil the wagon where he rested his foot occasional and I seen what he was thinking so I says to him Dr. Kirby I guess the crowd is all going to the circus again tonight and all them fellas there seen I knowed him I guess so Rube he says to me and they all laughed cause he called me Rube and I felt kinda took down then he lit in to tell about that engine medicine first off he told how he'd come to find out about it it was the father of the engine what was with him had showed him he said and it was in the days of his youthfulness when he was wild in a cowboy on the plains of Oregon well one night he says there was an awful fight on the plains of Oregon wherever them is and he got plugged full of bullet holes and his horse run away with him and he was carried off and the horse was going at a dead run and the blood was running down onto the ground and the wolf smelled the blood and took out after him yipping into y'all on something frightful here and the horse he kicked out behind and killed the head wolf and the others stopped to eat him up and while they was eating him the horse gained a quarter of a mile but they ate him up and they was gaining again for the smell of human blood it was on the plains of Oregon he says and the side of his mother's face when she asked him never to be cowboy came to him in the moonlight and he know that somehow all would yet be well and then he must have fainted and he know no more till he woke up in a tent on the plains of Oregon and there was an old engine bending over him and a beautiful engine maiden was feeling of his pulse and they says to him pale face take hope for we will doctor you with seawash engine sagra which is nature's own cure for all diseases they done it and he got well it had been a secret among them in their engines for thousands and thousands of years any engine that gave away the secret was killed and rubbed off the rolls of the tribe and buried in disgrace upon the plains of Oregon and the doctor was made a blood brother of the chief and learnt the secret of that medicine finally he got the chief to see as it was in Christian Hall back at their medicine from the world no longer and the chief his heart was softened and he says to go go my brother he says and give to the pale faces the medicine that has been kept secret for thousands and thousands of years among the seawash engines on the plains of Oregon and he went and it wasn't that he wanted to make no money out of that their medicine he could have made all the money he wanted being a doctor in the regular way but what he wanted was to spread the glad tidings of good health all over this fair land of iron he says well sir he was a talker that their doctor was and he knowed more religious sayings and poetry along with it than any filler I ever hear he goes on and he tells how awful sick people can manage to get and never know it and no one else never suspicion it and live along for years and years that way and all that time a danger of death he says it makes him weep when he sees them poor diligurated fools going around and thinking they is well man talking and laughing and marrying and giving into marriage right on the edge of the grave he sees dozens of them in every town he comes to but they can't fool him he says he can tell at a glance who's got Bratz disease in their kidneys and who ain't his own father he says was deathless sick for years and years and never know it and the knowledge come on him son like and he died that was before seawash engines sagrawl was ever found out about Dr. Kirby broke down and cried right there in the wagon when he thought of how his father might have been saved if he was only alive now that that medicine was put up into bottle form six for a five dollar bill so long as he was in town and after that two dollars for each bottle at the drug store he unrolled a big chart and the engine held it by that there gasoline lamp so all could see turn the pages now and then it was a map of a man's inside organs and digestive ornaments and things they was red and blue like each organs own disease had turned it and some of them was the hour and there was a long string of diseases printed in black hanging down from each organs picture I never know they was so many diseases nor yet so many things to have a man well I was feeling pretty good when the show started but the doc he kept looking right at me every now and then when he talked and I couldn't keep my eyes off on him does your heart beat fast when you exercise he asked the crowd is your tongue coated after meals do your eyes leak when your nose is stopped up do your perspire under your armpits do you ever have a ringing in your ears does your stomach hurt after meals does your back ever ache do you ever have pains in your legs do your eyes blur when you look at the sun are your teeth coated does your hair come out when you comb it is your breath short when you walk upstairs do your feet swell in warm weather are there white spots on your fingernails do you draw your breath part of the time through one nostril part of the time through the other do you ever have a nightmare did your nose bleed easily when you were growing up does your skin fester when scratched are your eyes gummy in the mornings then he says if you have any or all of these symptoms your blood is bad and your liver is wasting away well sir I seen I was in a bad way for at one time or another I had most of them in their signs and warnings and I hadn't heeded them and I had some of them yet I began to feel kind of sick and looking at them organs and diseases didn't help me none either the doctor he lit out on another string of symptoms and I had them too seems to me I had pretty not everything but fits kidney complaint and consumption both had a hold on me it was about an even bet which would get me first I kind of got to wondering which I figured from what he said I'd had consumption the longest while but my kind of kidney trouble was an awful sly kind and I was liable to jump in without no warring tall and just naturally wipe me out quick so I sort of bet on the kidney trouble but I seen I was a goner and I forgive Hank all his orneryness for a fella don't want to die holding grudges taking it the whole way through that was about the best medicine show I ever seen but they didn't sell much all the people had any money was to the circus again that night so they sung some more songs and closed early and went into the hotel end of chapter three recording by Dan Kaufman www.dancoffman.com chapter four of Danny's own story this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Dan Kaufman Danny's own story by Don Marquis chapter four well the next morning I'm feeling considerable better and think maybe I'm going to live after all I got up earlier than Hank did and slipped out without him seeing me it didn't go not a shop at all for now I've licked Hank once to figure he won't rest till he has wiped that disgrace out and he won't care a darn what he picks up to do it with another there was a crick about a hundred yards from our house in the woods and I went over there and laid down and watched it run by I laid awful still thinking I wished I was away from that town pretty soon a squirrel comes down sets on a log and watches me I throwed an acorn at him and he scooted up a tree quicker in scat and then I wish I hadn't scared him away for it looked like he knowed I was in trouble pretty soon I take a swim and comes out and lays there some more spitting into the water thinking what shall I do now and watching birds and things moving around and ants working harder and ever I would again unless I got better pay for it and these are tumble-bugs kicking their loads along hide into after a while is getting along toward noon and I'm feeling hungry but I don't want to have no more trouble with Hank and I just lays there I hear two men coming through the underbrush I raise up my elbow to look and one of them was Dr. Kirby and the other was Louie only Louie wasn't an engine this morning they sets down on the roots of a big tree a little ways off with their backs toward me and they ain't seen me so naturally I listened to what they was talking about they was both kind of mad at the whole world and at our town in particular and some at each other too the doctor he says I haven't had such rotten luck since I played the bloodhound in a Tom show were you ever an Uncle Tom's cabin artist Louie and adjusted the piece over an hour find me five dollars for being on the street without a muzzle said it was a city ordinance talk about the gentle rude being an easy mark have these country towns don't get wandering minstrels money one way they will another it's your own fault says Louie kind of sour I can't see it says Dr. Kirby how did I know all these apple knockers and filled up with sacks magic remedy only two weeks ago I may have been a spiritualistic medium in my time now and then he says and a minor either too but I'm no profit I talking about the business doc and you know it says Louie we'd be all right and have our horses in wagon now if you'd only stuck to business and not gonna send to that poker game talk about suckers dock for a man that has skin as many of them as you have you're the worst sucker yourself I ever saw doctor he cusses the poker game in country towns and medicine shows and a whole creation and says he is so disgusted with life he guesses he'll go and be a preacher or bearded lady in a side show but Louie he don't cheer up none he says alright doc but it's no use talking you could talk all right we all know that the question is how are we gonna get our horses wagon away from these rubes I listen some more and I see them fellas is really into bad trouble Dr. Kirby he had got into a poker game at Smith's Palace Hotel the night before right after the show he had one from Jake Smith which run it and from the others but shucks it never made no difference what you want in that crowd they had done Dr. Kirby and Louie like they'd always done a drummer or a stranger that come along into that town was full enough to play poker with them they wasn't a chance for an outsider if the drummer lost they would take his money and that would be all they was to it but if the drummer got to winning good someone would slip out in the hotel and tell C. Emery which was the city marshal and C. would get Ralph Scott that worked for Jake Smith in his library stable and pin a star on Ralph too and they would be arrested for gambling all of them that lived in our town would get away which C. and Ralph was always scared every time they'd done it then the drummer or whoever it was would be took to the Calaboose and spent all night there in the morning they would be took before squire Matthews that was just so the peace they would be fine a big fine and we get all the drummer had won and all he had brung the town with him besides squire Matthews and Jake Smith and Wendy Goodell and Mark Watson which the two last was lawyers was always playing that their game on drummers that was full enough to play poker Hank he says he bet they divided it up afterwards though it was supposed them fines went to the town well they played a pretty close game of poker in our little town it was just like the doctor says to Louie by George he says it is a Y and L perfect thing if you lose you lose and if you win you lose well the doctor he had started out winning the night before and C. M. and Ralph Scott had arrested them and that morning while I had been laying by the crick and the rest of the town was seeing the fun they had been took before squire Matthews and fined one hundred and twenty five dollars a piece the doctor he tells squire Matthews it is an outrage and it ain't legal to try it in a bigger court and they ain't that much money in the world so far as he knows and he won't pay it but the squire he says the time has come to teach them traveling faquirs as he's always running around the country with shows and electric belts and things that they got to stop draining that town of hard-earned money and he has decided to make an example of them the only two lawyers in town is Wendy and Mark which has been in the poker game their sales the same as always the doctor says the whole thing is a put-up job and he can't get the money and he wouldn't if he could and he'll lay in that town calaboose and rot the rest of his life and eat the town poor before he'll stand it and the squire says he'll just take their horses and wagon for collateral till they make up the rest of the two hundred and fifty dollars and the horses and wagon was now on the leverry stable next to Smith's palace hotel which Jake run that to well I think to myself it is a darn shame and I felt sorry for them two fellers for our town was just as good as stealing that property and I felt kind of shame to belong in such a town too and I think to myself I'd like to help him out of that scrape and then I seen how I could do it and I could took up for it neither so without thinking all of a sudden I jumps up and says say doctor Kirby I got a scheme they jumps up to when they look at me startle then the doctor kind of laughs and says why it's the young blacksmith Louie he says looking at me hard suspicious what kind of scheme are you talking about why says I to get that outfit a yarn you've been listening to us as Louie Louie is one of them quiet looking fellows that never laugh much nor talk much Louie he never made fun of nobody which the doctor was always doing and I wouldn't have cared to make fun of Louie much either yes I says I've been laying here for quite a spell and quite natural I listened to you as anyone else would have done and maybe I can get that team and wagon of yarn without a cost of you a cent well they didn't know what to say they asked me how but I says leave it all to me walk right along down this here creek I says till you get to where it comes out in the woods and runs across the road and under an iron bridge that's about half a mile east just after the road crosses the bridge at Forks take that right fork and walk another half a mile and you'll see a little yaller painted schoolhouse sitting lonesome on a sand hill they ain't no school in it now you wait there for me I says for a couple of hours after that if I ain't there you'll know I can't make it but I think I'll make it they looks at each other and they looks at me and then they go off a little place to talk low and then the doctor says to me Rube he says I don't know how you can work anything on us that hasn't been worked already we got nothing more that we can lose you go to it Rube and it started off so I went over town Jake Smith was sitting on the piazza in front of his hotel chowing and spitting tobacco with his feet again the railing like he always done and one of his eyes squinched up and his hat over the other one Jake I says where's that there doctor Jake he spits careful before he answered and he pulled his long scraggly mustache careful and he squinted his eyes at me Jake was a careful man in everything he done I don't know Danny he says why well I says Hank sent me over to get that wagon and them hustled there and finished that job that there wagon says Jake is in my barn with C.M. rewatching her and she has got to stay there till the law lets her loose I figured myself Jake could use that team and wagon in his business and was going to buy her cheap off in the town but Sheriff Harry didn't figure he owned already why Jake I says I hope they ain't been no trouble no kind that has drugged the law into your barn well Danny he says they has been a little trouble but it's about over now I guess and that their outfit belongs to the town now you don't say so says I surprised like when I seen that man last night it looked to me like they was too fine dressed to be honest I don't think they be Danny says Jake confidential in my opinion they is mighty bad customers but they has got on the wrong side of the law now and I guess they won't stay around here much longer well says I Hank will be glad for what asked Jake well says I because he got his pain advance for that job and now we don't have to finish it they come along to our place about sundown yesterday and we nailed a shoe on one house there was a couple other huffs needed fixing and the tire on one of the hind wheels was beginning to rattle loose I had noticed that loose tire when I was standing by the hind wheel the night before and it came in handy now so I goes on Hank he allowed he'd fix the whole thing for six bottles that engine medicine Elmira has been ill lately and he wanted it for her so they handed Hank out six bottles then and there huh says Jake so the job is all paid for is it yes is I and I was expected to do it myself but now I guess I'll go fishing instead they ain't no other job in the shop I'll be dinged if you got time to fish says Jake I'm expecting maybe to buy that rig off the time myself with the law let's loose of it so if the vixen is paid for I want everything fixed Jake says I kind of worried like I don't want to do it without the doctor says to go ahead they ain't his and no longer says Jake I don't know says I as you got any right to make me do it Jake they don't look to me like it's no harm to beat a couple of fellas like them out of their medicine and I did want to go fishing this afternoon but Jake was that careful and stingy he tried to skin a horse twice if he died he's bound to get that job done now Danny he says you gotta do that work it ain't honest not to what a young fella like you just starting out life wants to remember is to always be honest then says Jake squinching up his eyes people trust you and you get a good chance to make money look at this here hotel and livery stable Danny twenty years ago I didn't have no more and you got Danny but I always went by them models hard work and being honest you got to nail them shoes on Danny and fix that will well all right Jake says I if you feel that way about it just give me a child tobacco and come around and help me hitch him up see Emory was there asleep on a pile of straw garden that property but Ralph Scott wasn't around so he didn't wake up till we hitched him up he says he will ride around to the shop with me but Jake says it's all right see I'll go over myself fetch him back pretty soon which he was wore out with being up so late the night before and goes back to sleep again right off well sir they wasn't nothing went wrong I drove slow through the village and passed our shop hate come to the door of it as I went past but I hit them houses a lick and they broke into a right smart trot Elmira she come onto the porch and I wave my hand at her she put her hand up to her forehead to shut out the sun and just stared she didn't know I was waving her farewell Hank he yelled something at me but I never hear what I lick them houses into a gallop and went around the turn of the road and that's the last I ever seen or hearing of Hank or Elmira or that their little town end of chapter four recorded by Dan Kaufman www.myaclonicjerk.com Los Angeles California may two thousand twelve chapter five of Danny's own story this is a LibriVonx recording all LibriVonx recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVonx.org Danny's own story by Don Marquis chapter five I slowed down when I got to the school house and both infellows piled in I guess I'd better turn north for about a mile and then turn west up the Kirby I says so as to make a kind of a circle around that town why so Reub he asked me well I says we left it going east and they'll follow us east so don't we want to be going west while they're following the east Louie he agreed with me but he said it wouldn't be much use for we would likely be catched up with and took back and hung or something anyhow Louie could get the lowest in his spirits sometimes of any man I ever seen don't be afraid of that says the doctor they're not going to follow us they know they didn't get this property by due process of law they aren't going to take the case into a county court where it will all come out about the way they robbed a couple of traveling men with a fake trial I guess you know more about the law than I do I says I kind of thought maybe we stole them horses well he says we got them anyhow and if they try to arrest us without a warrant they'll be the deuce to pay but they aren't going to make any more trouble I know these country crooks they've got no stomach for trouble outside their own township which made me feel considerable better for I never been of the opinion that going again the law done anyone no good they look around in that wagon and all their stuff was there Jake Smith and the squire haven't kept it all together to make things seem more legal I suppose and the doctor was plum tickled and Louie felt as cheerful as he ever felt about anything so the doctor says they has everything they needs but some ready money and he'll get that sure for he never seen the time he couldn't but Louie he says I'm done with country hotels from now on they've got the last cent they ever will from me at least in the summer time how you going to work it Louie asks him like he has no hopes it will work right camp out says the doctor I've been thinking it all over then he turns to me Rube he says where are you going? well I says I pointed nowhere in particular except away from that town we just left which my name ain't Rube Dr. Kirby but Danny Danny what? asks he nothing says I just Danny well then Danny says he how would you like to be an Indian? medical asks I or real like Louie says he I tells him being a medical engine and mixed up with a show like his would suit me down to the ground and asks him what is the main duties of one besides the blankets and the feathers? well he says this camping out scheme of mine will take a couple of Indians instead of paying hotel and feed bills we'll pitch our tent he says at the edge of town in each sweet aubern of the plains we'll save money and we'll be near the throbbing heart of nature and an Indian camp in each place will be a good advertisement for the sag raw you can look after the horses and learn to do the cooking and that kind of thing and maybe after a while he says kind of working himself up to where he thought it was going to be real nice maybe after a while I will give you some insight into the hidden mysteries of selling Siwash Indian sag raw well says I I'd like to learn that would you says he kind of laughing at himself and me too and yet kind of enthusiastic well then the first thing you have to do is learn how to sell corn salve anyone that can sell corn salve can sell anything there's a farmhouse right over there and I'll give you your first lesson right now rummage around in that satchel there under the seat and get me a tin box and some corn salve labels I found a lot of labels and some boxes too the labels was all different sizes but barring that they all looked about the same to me whilst I was sizing them up he asks me again was there any corn salve ones in there what color label is it doctor Kirby I asked him for they was blue labels and white labels and pink labels he looks at me right queer can't you read the labels he says right sharp well I says I've never been much your reader when it comes to different kinds of medicines corn salve is spelled only one way says he that's right I says and you think I ought to be able to pick out a common ordinary thing like corn salve right off wouldn't you Danny he says you don't mean to tell me you can't read anything at all I never told you nothing of the kind he picks out a label if you can read so fast what's that he asks she is a pink one I think it's to myself she's either a corn salve or else she ain't corn salve and it ain't natural he'll pick corn salve for he would think I would say that first off so I'm betting it ain't I takes a chance on it that says I is mighty easy reading that is Psywash engine sagraw I lost it's corn salve he says and great Scott they call this the 20th century I never called it that says I sort of mad like for I was feeling bad not the Kirby had found out I was such an ignoramus where ignorance is bliss says he it is folly to be wise but all the same I'm going to take your education in hand and make you drink of life's Peruvian springs or some spring like that it was and the doctor he done it Louis said it wouldn't be no use learning to read he done a lot of reading he said and it never helped him none all he ever read showed him this fellow Hamlet was right he said when he wrote Shakespeare's works and there wasn't much use in anything without you had a lot of money and there wasn't no chance to get that with all these here trusts around gobbling up everything and stomping the poor man into the dirt and there was lots of times he wished he was an engine sure enough and not just a medical one for then he'd be a free man and the bosses and the trusts and the railroads and the robber tariff couldn't touch him and then he shut up and didn't say nothing for a whole hour except once he left for dr. Kirby he says winking at me Louis here is a nihilist is he says I what's that and the doctor tells me about how they blow up dukes and zars and them foreign high muckety mucks with dynamite which is when Louis laughed well we jogged along at a pretty good gate for several hours and we stayed that night at a Swedes place which the doctor paid him for everything in medicine only it took a long time to make the bargain for them Swedes is always careful not to get cheated and hasn't many diseases and the next night we showed in a little town and done right well and took in considerable money we stayed there three days and bought a tent and the sheet iron stove and some skillets and things and some provisions and a suit of duds for me well we went on and we kept going on and they was bully times we'd ease up careful toward a town and pick us out of place on the edge where the horses could graze along the side of the road and most generally by a piece of woods not fur from that town and nye a crick if we could and then we'd set up our tent after we had everything fixed i put on my engine clothes and louis hyzen and we drive through the main store street of the town at a pretty good lick me a halt of the reins and the doctor all tugged out in his best clothes and louis doing an engine dance in the midst of the wagon i'd pull up the horses sudden in front of the post office or the depot platform or the hotel and the people would come crowding around and the doctor he'd make a little talk from the wagon until everybody they would be a free show that night on that corner and for everybody to come to it and then we'd drive back to camp lickety split pretty soon every boy in town would be out there kind of hanging around to see what an engine camp was like and the farmers that went into and out of town always stopped and passed the time of day and the engine camp got the whole town all worked up as a usual thing and the doctor he done well for when night came everyone would be on hand louis and me every time we went into town had on our engine suits and the doctor he wondered why he had never thought up that scheme before sometimes when they was lots of people ailing in a town and they hadn't been no show for quite a while we'd stay five or six days and make a good cleanup the doctor he sent to Chicago several times for alcohol in barrels because he was selling it so fast he had to make new sagro and he had to get more and more bottles and the whole satchel full of new sagro labels printed and all the time the doctor was learning me education and shucks there wasn't nothing so hard about it once you got started into reading things i just naturally took to print like a duck to water and inside of a month i was reading nigh everything that has ever been wrote he had lots of books with him and every time a new suck dullager of a word came along and i learned how to spell her and where she ought to fit in to make sense it kind of tickled me all over and many's the time afterward when me and the doctor had lost track of each other and there was quite a spell people got to thinking i was a tramp i've went into these here and drew Carnegie libraries in different towns just as much to see if they had anything fitting to read as for to keep warm well we went easy and over toward the indianie line and we was having a pretty good time there wasn't no work to do you could call really hard and there was plenty of vitals afternoons we'd lazy around the camp and swap stories and make medicine if we needed a batch and josh back and forth with the people that hung around and loaf and doze and smoke and maybe do a little fishing if we was nigh a quick and nights after the show was over it was fun too we always had a fire even if it was a hot night for to cook by in the first place and for to keep mosquitoes off and to make things seem more cheerful they eat nothing so good as hanging around the campfire and the nothing any better than sleeping outdoors neither you roll up in your blanket with your feet to the fire and you get to wondering things about things before you go to sleep the silentness just naturally swamps everything after a while and then all them queer little noises you never hear in the daytime come popping and poking through the silentness a kind of scratching their way through it sometimes and makes it kind of feel more silent than ever and if you're nigh a quick pretty soon it will sort of get to talking to you only you can't make out what it's trying to say and you get to wondering about that too and if you're in a tent and it rains and the tent don't leak that rain is a kind of a nice thing to listen to itself but if you can see the stars you get to wonder in more never they come out and they are so many of them and they are so far away and yet they are so kind of friendly like too if you happen to be feeling pretty good but if you ain't feeling pretty good just lay there and look at them stars long enough and then maybe you'll see it don't make no difference whether you're feeling good or not for they got a way of making your private troubles look mighty small and you get to wondering why that is too for they ain't human and it don't stand a reason you ought to pay no attention to them one way nor the other they is just there like trees and cricks and hills but i have often noticed that the things that is just there has got a way of seeming more friendly than the things that has been built and put there you can look at a big iron bridge or a green elevator or a canal all day long and if you're feeling blue it don't help you none it was just put there or a haystack is the same way but you go and lazy around in the grass when you're down on your luck and kind of make remarks to a creek or a big old walnut tree and before long it gets you to feel like it didn't make no difference how you felt anyhow you don't amount to nothing by the side of something that was always there you get to thinking how the whole world itself was always here and you sort of see the nothing important enough about yourself to worry about and presently you'll go to sleep and forget it the doctor says to me one time them stars ain't any different from this world and this is one of them which is a fool idea as anyone can see he had a lot of queer ideas like that dr. Kirby had but they nothing like sleeping out of doors nights to make you wonder the kind of wonderings you never will get any answer to well i never cared so much for houses after them days they was bully times them was and i was kind of proud of being with a show too many's the time i've went down the street and left their engine suit and seen how the young fellas would have given all they own to be me and every now and then you would hear one say when you went past huh i know him that's one of them show fellers one afternoon we pictures our tent right on the edge of a little town called Athens we was neither bank of a creek and there was a groove there we was camp just outside of a woodlot fence and back in through the trees from us they was a house with a hedge fence all around it they was apple trees and all kind of flower bushes and things inside of the hedge the second day we was there i takes a walk back through the woodlot and along past the house and there was one of these here early harvest apple trees spilling apples through a gap in the fence them is a mighty sweet and juicy kind of apple and i picks one up and bites into it i think you might have asked for it says someone end of chapter five chapter six of Danny's own story this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Danny's own story by Don Marquis chapter six i looks up and that was how i got acquainted with Martha she was eating one herself setting up in the tree like a boy in her lap was a book she had been reading she was leaning back into the four two limbs made so as not to tumble well i says can i have one you've eaten it already she says so there isn't any use begging for it now i seen she was a tease that girl and i would have give anything to have been able to tease her right back again but i couldn't think of nothing to say so i just stands there kind of dumb like thinking what a darn pretty girl she was and thinking how dumb i must look and i felt my face getting red dr. Kirby would have thought of something to say right off and after i got back to camp i would think of something myself but i couldn't think of nothing bright so i says well then you give me another one she gives the core of the one she had been eating a toss at me but i catched it and made like i was going to throw it back at her real hard she slung up her arm and dodged back and she dropped her book i thinks to myself i'll learn that girl to get sassy and make me feel like a dumbhead even if she is pretty so i don't say a word i just picks up that book and sticks it under my arm and walks away slow with it to where they was a stump a little ways off not fur from the creek and sits down with my back to her and opens it and i was trying all the time to think of something smart to say to her but i couldn't have done it if i was to be shot still i thinks to myself no girl can sass me and not get sassed back neither i hear in her scramble behind me which i know was her getting out of that tree and in a minute she was in front of me mad give me my book she says but i only reads the name of the book out loud for her to aggravate her i had on pretty good duds but i kind of wished i had on my engine rig then you take the girls that always comes down to see the passenger train come into the depot in them country towns and that engine rig of mine and louis always makes him turn around and look at us again i never wished i had on them engine duds so hard before in my life but i couldn't think of nothing bright to say so i just reads the name of that book over to myself again kind of grinning like i got a good joke and i ain't gonna tell anyone you give me my book she says again red is one of them harvest apples or i'll tell miss hampton you stole it and she'll have you and your show arrested i reads the name again it was the lost air i seen i had her good and teased now so i says it must be one of these here love stories by the way you take on over it it's not she says getting ready to cry and what right have you got an hour wood lot anyhow well i says i was just about to move on and climb out of it when you hollered to me from that tree i didn't she says but she was mad because she knows she had spoke to me first and she was awful sorry she had i thought i heard you holler i says but i guess there must have been a squirrel i said it kind of sarcastic like for i was still mad with myself for being so dumb when we first seen each other i had no idea it would hurt her feelings as hard as it did but all of a sudden she begins to wink and her chin trembled and she turned around short and started to walk off slow she was mad with herself for being catched in a lie and she was wondering what i would think of her for being so bold as to have spoke first to a feller she didn't know i got up and followed her a little piece and it come to me all at once i had teased her too hard and i was down on myself for it say i says kind of tagging along beside of her here's your old book but she didn't make no move to take it and her hands was over her face and she wouldn't pull them down to even look at it so i tried again well i says feeling real mean i wish you wouldn't cry i didn't go to make you do that she drops her hands and whirls around on me mad as a wet hen right off i'm not i'm not she sings out and stamps her feet i'm not crying but just then she loses her hold on herself and busts out and just naturally bellers i hate you she says like she could have killed me that made me kind of dumb again for it come to me all at once i like that girl awful well and here i'd up and made her hate me i held the book out to her again and says well i'm mighty sorry for that for i don't feel that away about you at all here's your book well sir she snatches that book and she gives it a sling i thought it were going kerplash into the creek but it didn't it hit right into the fork of a limb that hung down over the creek and it all spread out when it lit and stuck in that crotch somehow she couldn't have slung it that way on purpose in a million years we both stands and looks at it a minute oh oh she says what have i done it's out of the town library and i'll have to pay for it i'll get it for you i says but it wasn't no easy job if i shook that limit would tumble into the creek but i clumped the tree and eased out on that limb as fur as i dashed to and of course just as i got hold of the book that limb broke and i fell into the creek but i had the book it was some soaked but i reckoned it could still be red i clumped out and she was just splitting herself laughing at me she wet on her face where she had cried wasn't dried up yet and she was laughing right through it kind of like the sun does to one of these here may rainstorm sometimes and she was the prettiest girl i ever seen gosh how i was getting to like that girl and she told me i look like a drowned rat well that's how martha and me was introduced she was morn sixteen and when she found out i was often she was glad for she was one herself which miss hampton that lived in that house had took her to raise and when i tells her how i've been traveling around the country all summer she claps her hands and she says oh you were on a quest how romantic i asked her what is a quest and she tells me she knowed all about them for martha was considerable of a reader some of them was longer and some of them were shorter than quests but mostly martha says they was for a twelve month and a day and then you are released from your vow and one of these here queens gives you a whack on the shoulder with a sword and says arise her marble duke i dub you a night and then it is legal for you to go out and rescue people and reform them and spear them if they don't see things your way and come between husband and wife when they row and do a heap of good in the world well there was other kinds of quests too but mostly you married somebody or was dubbed a night or found the party you was looking for in the end and martha had it all fixed up in her own mind i was in a quest to find my father for says she is pretty certain to be a powerful rich man and more likely a Earl the way i was found martha says kind of pints to the idea there was a Earl mixed up in it somewhere she had read a lot about urls and knew their ways maybe my mother was a url's daughter url's daughter's is the worst for leaving you out in baskets going by what martha said it's a kind of habit with them for they is awful proud people but it was a lucky way to start life from all she said that basket way there was moses was left out that way and when he growed up he was made a kind of president of the hall human race the same as rusevelt and figured out the 12 commandments mother would have given anything if she could only been found in a basket like me i could see that but she wasn't she had just been left often when her folks died there wasn't even no hopes she had been changed at birth for another one but i seen down in under everything martha kind of thought maybe one of them knights might come up prancing along and wed her in spite of herself or she would be carried off or something she was a very romance full kind of girl when i seen she had it figured out i was in a quest for some high mucky muck for a dad i didn't tell her no different i didn't take much stock in them urls and knights myself so first i could see they was all furners of one kind or another but that thing of being into a quest kind of interested me too how would i know if i was to run across to him i asked sir you would feel an intangible something she says drawing you toward him i asked sir what kind of a something i make out from what she says it's like these fellas that can find water with a piece of witch hazel switch you take a switch of it between your thumb and point it up then you shut your eyes and walk backwards when you get over where the water is the witch hazel twists twists around and points to the ground you dig there and you get a good well nobody knows just why that stick is draw to the ground it's like one of these little whirligig compasses is draw to the north it is the same Martha says if you are on a quest for a father or a mother only you have got to be worthy of that their quest she says the first time you meet the right one you are draw just like the witch hazel that is the intangible something working on you she says Martha had learned a lot about that the book that had fell in the creek was like that she lent it to me well that all sounded kind of reasonable to me i seen that witch hazel worked myself old blindy wolf whose eyes had been dead for so many years they had turned plum white had that gift and picked out all the places for wells that was dug in our neighborhood at home and i makes up my mind i'll watch out for that feeling of being drawed wherever i goes after this you can't tell what will come of them kind of things so pretty soon Martha has to milk the cow and i goes along back to camp thinking about that quest and about how a pretty girl she is which we had set their talking so long it was nice sundown and my clothes had dried on to me when i got over to camp i seen they must be something wrong louis was sitting in the grass under the wagon looking kind of sour and kind of worried and watching the doctor the doctor was just inside the tent and he was looking queer too and not cheerful which he was usually the doctor looks at me like he don't scarcely know me which he don't he has one of them quiet kind of drunk song which louis explains is bound to come every so often he don't do nothing mean but just gets low spirited and won't talk to no one then all of a sudden he will go downtown and walk up and down the main streets orderly but looking hard into people's faces mostly women's faces once louis says there was big trouble over it they was in a store in a good sized town and he took hold of a woman's chin and tilted her face back and looked at her hard and most scared her to death and they was nearly being a riot there and he was jailed and had to pay a big fine since then louis always follows him around when he's that away well that night doctor curbie is too for a gun for us to have our show he just sets and stairs and stairs at the fire and his eyes look like there's another fire inside of his head and he is hurting outside and in louis and me watches him from the shadows for a long time before we turns in and the last thing I seen before I went to sleep with him sitting there with his face in his hands staring and his lips moving now and then like he was talking to himself the next day he is asleep all morning but that day he don't drink any more and louis says maybe it ain't going to be one of the regular piflicated kind I seen Martha again that day too twice I had talks with her I talked to her about the doctor is he into a quest do you think I asked sir she says she thinks it is remorse for some crime he has done but I couldn't figure Dr. curbie would have done none so that night after the show I says to him innocent like Dr. curbie what is a quest he looks at me kind of queer wherefore says he this sudden thirst for enlightenment I just run across the word accidental like I told him he looks at me awful hard his eyes just naturally digging into me I feel like he knowed I had set out to pump him I wished I hadn't tried it then he tells me a quest is a hunt and I'm glad that's over with but it ain't for pretty soon he says Danny did you ever hear of Lady Clara Vera De Vera no I says who is she a lady friend of Lord Tennyson's he says whose manners were above reproach well I says she sounds kind of like a medicine to me Lady Clara he says and all the other Vera De Vera's were people with manners we should try to imitate if Lady Clara had been here last night when I was talking to myself Danny her manners wouldn't have let her listen to what I was talking about I didn't listen I says for I seen he was driving at now with them Vera De Vera's he thought I had asked him what a quest was because he was on one I was certain of that now he wasn't quite sure what he had been talking about and he wanted to see how much I had her and I thanks to myself it must be a awful funny kind of hunt he is on if he only hunts when he is in that fix but I acted real innocent and like my feelings was hurt and he believed me pretty soon he says cheerful like there was a girl talking to you today Danny maybe they was I says and maybe they wasn't but I felt my face getting red all the time and was mad because it did he grinned kind of aggravating at me and says some poetry at me about in spring a young man's frenzy likely turns to thoughts of love well I says kind of sheepish like this is summertime and pretty nigh autumn and then I seen I just as good as owned up I liked Martha and was kind of mad at myself for that but I told him some more about her too somehow I just couldn't help it he laughs at me and goes on into the tent I laid there and looked at the fire for quite a spell outside the tent I was thinking if all them tales wasn't just dirt and foolishness how I wished I could really find a dad that was a high mucky muck and could come back in an automobile and take her away I laid there for a long long time it must have been for a couple of hours I suppose the doctor had went to sleep but all of a sudden I looks up and he is at the door of the tent staring at me I seen he had been in there at it hard again and thinking quiet like all this time he stood there in the doorway of the tent with the firelight on to his face and his red beard and his arms stretched out holding to the canvas and looking at me strange and wild then he moved his hand up and down at me and he says if she's full enough to love you treat her well treat her well for if you don't you can never run away from the hell you'll carry in your own heart and he kind of doubled up and pitched forward when he said that and if I hadn't catched him he would have fell right across the fire he was plum-piflicated end of chapter six Martha wouldn't have took anything for being around Miss Hampton she said Miss Hampton was kind of quiet and sweet and pale looking and nobody ever thought of talking loud or raising any fuss when she was around she had enough money of her own to run herself on and she kept to herself a good deal she had come to that town from no one knowed where years ago and bought that place for all of her being so gentle and easy and talking with one of them soft drolly kind of voices Martha says no one had ever dared to ask her about herself though there was a lot of women in that town that was wishful too but Martha said she knowed what Miss Hampton's secret was and she hadn't told no one neither which she told me and all the promising I'd done about not telling would have made the cold chills run up your back it was so solemn Miss Hampton had been jilted years ago Martha said and the name of the jilter was David Armstrong well he must have been a low down sort of man Martha said if things was only fixed in this country like they ought to be she would have sent a knight to find that David Armstrong and that would have ended up in a mortal combat and the knight would have cleaved him yes says I and then you would have married that there night I suppose she says she would have well says I maybe you would have and maybe you wouldn't have if he cleaved David Armstrong that night would likely be arrested for it Martha says if he was she would wait outside his dungeon keep for years and years till she was a old woman with gray in her hair and every day they would give lingering looks at each other through the window bars and they would be happy that away and she would get her a white dove and train it so it would fly up to that window and take in notes to him and he would send notes back that away and they would both be awful sad and romanceful and contented doing that away forever and ever well I never took no stock in them mournful ways of being happy I couldn't have risen up to being a knight for Martha she expected too much of one I thought it over for a little spell without saying anything and I tried to make myself believe I would have liked all that dove business but it wasn't no use pretending I knowed I would get tired of it Martha I says maybe these here knights is all right and maybe they ain't I ain't never seen one and I don't know and mind you I ain't saying a word again their way of acting I can't say how I would have been myself if I had been brung up like them but it looks to me from some of the things you've said about them they must have a darn fool streak in them somewheres I was kind of jealous of them knights I guess or I wouldn't have run them down that away behind their backs but the way she was always taking on over them was calculated to make me see I wasn't knee high to a duck in Martha's mind when one of them knights popped into her head when I run them down that away she says to the blind all things is blind and if I had any chivalry into me myself I'd have seen they wasn't just darn fools but noble and seen it easy and she sighed like she'd looked for better things from me when I her in her do that I felt sorry I hadn't come up to her expectances so I says Martha it's no use pretending I could stay in one of them jails and keep happy at it I got to be outdoors but I tell you what I can do if it will make you feel any better if I ever happen to run across this here David Armstrong and he is anywheres near my size I'll lick him for you and if he's too hefty for me to lick him fair I says and I get a good chance I will hit him with a piece of railroad iron for you of course I knowed I would never find him but what I said seemed to brighten her up a little but says I if I went too fur with it and was hung for it how would you feel then Martha well sir that didn't jar Martha nun she looked kind of dreamy and said maybe she would go and join a convent and be a nun and when she got to be the head nun she would build a chapel over the tomb where I was buried in and every year on the day of the month I was hung on she would lead all the other nuns into that chapel and the organ would play mournful and each nun as they passed would lay down a bunch of white roses onto my tomb I reckon that order made me feel good but somehow it didn't so I changed the subject and asked her why I ain't seen Miss Hampton around the place nun Martha says she has a bad sick headache and ain't been outside the house for four or five days I asked her why she don't wait on her but she don't want her to Martha says she's been staying in the house ever since we've been in town and just wants to be let alone I think all that is kind of funny and then I seen from the way Martha is answering my questions that she is holding back something she would like to tell but don't think she ordered tell I leaves her alone and pretty soon she says do you believe in ghosts I tell her sometimes I think I don't believe in them and sometimes I think I do but anyhow I would hate to see one I asked her why does she asked because she says because but I hadn't got to tell you it's daylight I says it's no use being scared to tell now it ain't that she says but it's a secret when she said it was a secret I knowed she would tell Martha liked having her friends help her to keep a secret I think Miss Hampton has seen one she says finally and that her staying indoors has something to do with that then she tells me the night of the day after we camped there her and Miss Hampton was out for a walk we didn't have any show that night they passed right by our camp and they seen us there by the fire all three of us but they was in the road in the dark and we was all in the light so none of the three of us seen them Miss Hampton was kind of scared of us first glance for she gasped and grabbed hold of Martha's arm all of a sudden so tight she pinched it which it was very natural that she would be startled coming across three strange men all of a sudden at night around a turn in the road they went along home and Martha went inside and lighted a lamp but Miss Hampton lingered on the porch for a minute just as she lit the lamp Martha herned another little gasp or kind of sigh from Miss Hampton out there on the porch then there was the sound of her falling down Martha ran out with the lamp and she was laying there she had fainted and keeled over Martha said just in the minute she had left her alone on the porch was when Miss Hampton must have seen the ghost Martha brung her to and she was looking puzzled and wild like both to once Martha asked her what is the matter nothing she says rubbing her fingers over her forehead in a helpless kind of way nothing you look like you had seen a ghost Martha tells her Miss Hampton looks at Martha awful funny and then she says maybe she has seen a ghost and goes along upstairs to bed and since then she ain't been out of the house she tells Martha it is a sick headache but Martha says she knows it ain't she thinks she is scared of something scared I says she wouldn't see no more ghosts in the daytime Martha says how do I know she wouldn't she knows a lot about ghosts of all kinds Martha does horses and dogs can see them easier than humans even in the daytime and it makes their hair stand up when they do but some humans that have the gift can see them in the daytime like an animal and Martha asks me how can I tell but Miss Hampton is like that well then I says she must be a witch and if she is a witch why is she scared of them at all but Martha says if you have second sight you don't need to be a witch to see them in the daytime well you can never tell about them ghosts some says one thing and some says another old Miss Primrose in our town she always believed in a firm till her husband died when he was dying they fixed it up he was to come back and visit her she told him he had to and he promised and she left the front door open for him night after night for nigh a year in all kinds of weather but Primrose never come Miss Primrose says he never lied to her and he always done just as she told him and if he could have come she knowed he would and when he didn't she quit believing in ghosts but they was others in our town said it didn't prove nothing at all they said Primrose had really been lying to her all his life because she was so bossy he had to lie to keep peace in the family and she never catched on well if I was a ghost and had have been Miss Primrose's husband when I was a human I wouldn't have come back neither even if she had a bully ragged me into one of them death bed promises I guess Primrose figured he had earned to rest if they is ghosts what comfort they can get out of coming back where they ain't wanted and scaring folks is more and I can see it's kind of low down I think and foolish too them kind of ghosts is like these here overgrown smart Alex that scares kids they think they are mighty cute but they ain't they are just foolish a human or a ghost either that does things like that is just simply got no principle to him I heard a lot of talk about them first and last and I ain't ready to say they ain't no ghosts nor yet ready to say they is any to say they is any is to say something that is too plum unlikely and too many people has saw them for me to say they ain't any but if they is or if they ain't so far as I can see it don't make much difference for they never do nothing besides scaring you except to wrap on tables and tell fortunes and such fool things which a human can do it all better and save the expense of paying money to one of these here spirit mediums that travels around and make some perform but all the same they has been nights I has felt different about them myself and less hasty to run them down well I don't do no good to speak harsh of no one not even a ghost or an ordinary dead man and if I was to see a ghost maybe I would be all the scarder for what I have just wrote well with all the talking back and forth we done about them ghosts we couldn't agree that afternoon it seemed like we couldn't agree about anything I knowed we would be going away from there before long and I says to myself before I go I'm going to have that girl for my girl or else know the reason why no matter what I was talking about that idea was in the back of my head and somehow it kind of made me want to pick fusses with her too we was setting on a log pretty deep into the woods and there come a time when neither of us had said nothing for quite a spell but after a while I says Martha will be going away from here in two three days now she never said nothing will you be sorry I asked her she says she will be sorry well I says why will you be sorry I thought she would say because I was going and then I would be finding out whether she liked me a lot but she says the reason she will be sorry is because there will be no one new to talk about things both has read I was considerable took down when she said that Martha I says it's more than likely I won't ever see you again after I go away she says that kind of parting comes between the best of friends I seen I wasn't getting along very fast nor saying what I wanted to say I reckon one of them Sir Marmar Luke fellers would have known what to say or Dr. Kirby would or maybe even Louie would have said it better than I could so I was kind of mad with myself and I says mean like if you don't care of course I don't care neither she never answered that so I gets up and makes like I'm starting off I was going to give you some of them their engine feathers of mine to remember me by I tells her but if you don't want them there's plenty of others who would be glad to take them but she says she would like to have them well I says I will bring them to you tomorrow afternoon she says thank you finally I couldn't stand it no longer I got brave all of a sudden and busted out Martha I I I but I got to stuttering and my braveness stuttered itself away and I finishes up by saying I like you a whole lot Martha which wasn't just exactly what I had planned for to say Martha she says she kind of likes me too Martha I says I like you more than any girl I ever run across before she says thank you again the way she said it riled me up she said it like she didn't know what I meant nor what I was trying to get out of me but she did know all the time I knowed she did she knowed I knowed it too gosh turn it I says to myself here I am wasting all this time just talking to her the right thing to do come to me all of a sudden and like to took my breath away but I done it I grabbed her and I kissed her twice and then again because the first was on the chin on account of her jerking her head back and the second one she didn't help me none but the third time she helped me a little and the ones after that she helped me considerable well they ain't no use trying to talk about the rest of that afternoon I couldn't rightly describe it if I wanted to and I reckon it's none of anybody's business well it makes you feel kind of funny you want to go out and pick on somebody about four sizes bigger than you are and knock the socks off in him it stands to reason others has felt that away but you don't believe it you want to tell people about it one minute the next minute you have got chills and egg you for fear someone will guess it and you think the way you are about her is going to last for always that evening when I was cooking supper I laughed every time I was spoke to when Louie and I was hitching up to drive downtown to give the show one of the houses stepped on his foot and I laughed at that and there was pretty nice fight and I was handling some bottles and broke one and cut my hand on a piece of glass I held it out for a minute dumb like with the blood and medicine dripping off of it and all of a sudden I busted out laughing again the doctor asked if I am crazy and Louie says he has thought I was from the very first and some night him and the doctor will be killed whilst asleep one of the things we have every night in the show is an engine dance and Louie and I sings what the doctor calls the Cy wash war chant whirling around and around each other and making licks at each other with our Tommy Hawks and letting out sudden wild yips in the midst of that chant that night I like to have killed Louie with that Tommy Hawk I was feeling so good if it had been a real one instead of painted up wood I would have killed Louie the lick I gave him the worst part of that was that after the show when we got back to camp and the houses was picketed out for the night I had to tell Louie all about how I felt for an explanation of why I hit him which it made Louie write low in his spirits and he shakes his head and says no good will come of it did you ever hear of Romeo and Juliet he says maybe I says but what it was I heard I don't remember what about them well he says they carried on the same as you and now where are they well I says where are they in the tomb says Louie very sad like they was close to personal friends of his and he told me all about them and how young cobalt had done for them but from what I could make out it all happened away back in the early days and shucks I don't care a durn anyhow I told him so well he says it's been the history of the world that it brings trouble and he says to look at Damon and Pytheas and Othello and the merchant of Venus and he named about a hundred prominent couples like that out of Shakespeare's works but it ends happy sometimes I says not when it is true love it don't says Louie look at Anthony and Cleopatra yes I says sarcastic like I suppose they are in the tomb too they are says Louie awful solemn yes I says and so is Adam and Eve and Dan and Bersheba and all the rest of them old timers but I bet they had a good time while they lasted Louie shakes his head solemn and sighs and goes to sleep very mournful like he has to give me up for lost but I can't sleep none myself so pretty soon I gets up and puts on my shoes and sneaks through the wood lot and through the gap in the fence by the apple tree and into Miss Hampton's yard it was a beauty of a moonlit night that white and clearing clean you could almost see to read by it like all of everything has been scoured as bright as the bottom of a tin pan and the shatters was soft and thick and velvety and laid kind of brownish-greeny on the grass I flopped down in the shatter of some lilac bushes and wondered which was Martha's window I knowed she would be in bed long ago but well I was just plum foolish that night and I couldn't have kept away for any money that moonlight had got into my head it seemed like and made me drunk but I would rather be loony that away than to have as much sense as King Solomon and all his adverbs I was that loony that if I had no poetry I would have said it out loud right up toward that window I never knowed why poetry was made up before that night but the only poetry I could think of was about there was a man named Ferguson that lived on Market Street and he had a one-eyed Thomas cat that couldn't well be beat which it didn't seem to fit the case so I didn't say her the porch of that house was part covered with vines but they was kind of gaped apart at one corner as I lay there in the shatter of the bushes I heard a fluttering movement light and gentle on the porch then all of a sudden I seen someone standing on the edge of the porch where the vines was gaped apart and the moonlight was falling on to them they must have come there awful soft and still whoever it was couldn't see into the shatter where I laid that is if it was a human and not a ghost for my first thought was that it might be one of them ghosts I had been running down so that very day and maybe the same one Ms. Hampton seen on that very same porch I thought I was in for it then maybe and I felt like someone had whispered to the back of my neck it ought to be scared and I was scared clean up into my hair I stared hard for I couldn't take my eyes away then pretty soon I seen if it was a ghost it must be a woman ghost for it was dressed in light colored clothes that moved just a little in the breeze and the clothes was so near the color of the moonlight they seemed to kind of silver into it you would have said it had just floated there and was waiting for to float away again when the breeze blowed a little stronger or the moon drawed it it didn't move forever so long then it leaned forward through the gap in the vines and I seen the face real plain it wasn't no ghost it was a lady then I know it must be Ms. Hampton standing there away off through the trees our campfire sent up just a dull kind of a glow she was standing there looking at that I wondered why end of chapter seven