So I went out and played in the front yard, and
waited fur Elmira. But I couldn't seem to get my
mind settled on playing I was a horse, nor nothing.
I kep' thinking mebby Hank's corpse is going to
come flopping out of that cistern and whale me
some unusual way. I hadn't never been licked by
a corpse, and didn't rightly know jest what one is,
anyhow, being young and comparitive innocent.
So I sneaks back in and sets all the flatirons in the
house on top of the cistern lid. I hearn some flop-
ping and splashing and spluttering, like Hank's
corpse is trying to jump up and is falling back into
the water, and I hearn Hank's voice, and got
scareder yet. And when Elmira come along down
the road, she seen me by the gate a-crying, and she
asts me why.

"Hank is a corpse," says I, blubbering.

"A corpse!" says Elmira, dropping her coffee
which she was carrying home from the gineral
store and post-office. "Danny, what do you
mean?"

I seen I was to blame somehow, and I wisht 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 holt of me and asts me
agin what did I mean I blubbered harder, jest the
way a kid will, and says nothing else. I wisht I