was kep' up in that fambly for a habit. It was a
great comfort to Hank, fur all them Walterses was
great fish eaters, though it never went to brains.
We fed em now and then, and throwed back in the
little ones till they was growed, and kep' the dead
ones picked out soon's we smelled anything wrong,
and it never hurt the water none; and when I was
a kid I wouldn't of took anything fur living in a
house like that.

Oncet, when I was a kid about six years old,
Hank come home from the bar-room. He got to
chasing Elmira's cat cause 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
none when I was a little kid, fur if I fell in there
I'd be a corpse quicker'n scatt.

So when Hank fell in, and I hearn him splash,
being only a little feller, and awful scared because
Elmira had always made it so strong, I hadn't no
sort of unbelief but what Hank was a corpse already.
So I slams the trap door shut over that there cistern
without looking in, fur I hearn Hank flopping around
down in there. I hadn't never hearn a corpse flop
before, and didn't know but what it might be some-
how injurious to me, and I wasn't going to take no
chances.