in the head, and he didn't cum too fer
over three hours. Wall, we thought that
wuz purty good fer a Deacon. Wall, none
of us sed anything fer a right smart spell
and then Si Pettingill remarked "he didn't
know anything about eckos, but he calculated
he'd seen some mighty peculiar things;
sed he guessed he'd seen it rain 'bout as
hard as anybody ever seen it rain."
Someone sed, "Wall, Si, how hard did
you ever see it rain?" and he sed, "Wall
one day last summer down our way it
got to rainin' and it rained so hard that
the drops jist rubbed together comin'
down, which made them so allfired hot that
they turned into steam; why, it rained
so gosh dinged hard, thar wuz a cider
bar'l layin' out in the yard that had both
heads out'n it and the bung hole up; wall, it
rained so hard into that bung hole that the
water couldn't run out of both ends of the
bar'l fast enough, and it swelled up and
busted." Wall, we all took a fresh chew of
terbacker and nudged each other; and Ezra
Hoskins sed he didn't remember as how
he'd ever seen it rain quite so hard as that,
but he'd seen some mighty dry weather; he
sed one time when he wuz out in Kansas it
got so tarnation dry that fish a-swimmin' up
the river left a cloud of dust behind them.