bound to get a lamming purty soon anyhow. When
I was a kid I could always bet on that. So they
picks up the flatirons, and as they picks em up they
come a splashing noise in the cistern. I thinks to
myself, Hank's corpse'll be out of 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 they is some great big ones in there, and it must
be some of them a-flopping around. Which if
they hadn't of been all worked up and talking
all to oncet and all thinking of Hank's body hanging
out there in the blacksmith shop they might of
suspicioned something. For that flopping kep' up
steady, and a lot of splashing too. I mebby orter
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 the trap door and
looks in. Hank thinks it's Elmira come to get him
out. He allows he'll keep quiet in there and make
believe he is drowned and give her a good scare
and make her sorry fur him. But when the cistern
door is opened, he hears a lot of clacking tongues
all of a sudden like they was a hen convention on.
He allows she has told some of the neighbours,