and he'll scare them too. So Hank, he laid low.
And the woman as looks in sees nothing, for it's
as dark down there as the insides of the whale
what swallered Noah. But she leaves the door
open and goes on a-making tea, and they ain't
skeercly a sound from that 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 kicked some more, but she took hern.
And each woman took hern. And one woman,
a-sipping of hern, she says:

"The departed had his good pints, Elmira."

Which was the best thing had been said of Hank
in that town fur years and years.

Old Mis' Primrose, she always prided herself
on being honest, no matter what come, and she ups
and says:

"I don't believe in no hippercritics at a time like
this, no more'n no other time. The departed
wasn't no good, and the hull town knowed it; and
Elmira orter feel like it's good riddance of bad
rubbish and them is my sentiments and the senti-
ments of rightfulness."