Danny's Own Story. Don Marquis
minutes.
Mis' Alexander, she runs acrost the street to where we was, and she kneels down and puts her arm around Elmira, which was still rocking back and forth in the path, and she says:
“How do you know he's dead, Elmira? I seen him not more'n an hour ago.”
“Danny seen it all,” says Elmira.
Mis' Alexander turned to me, and wants to know what happened and how it happened and where it happened. But I don't want to say nothing about that cistern. So I busts out bellering fresher'n ever, and I says:
“He was drunk, and he come home drunk, and he done it then, and that's how he cone it,” I says.
“And you seen him?” she says. I nodded.
“Where is he?” says she and Elmira, both to oncet.
But I was scared to say nothing about that there cistern, so I jest bawled some more.
“Was it in the blacksmith shop?” says Mis' Alexander. I nodded my head agin and let it go at that.
“Is he in there now?” asts Mis' Alexander. I nodded agin. I hadn't meant to give out no untrue stories. But a kid will always tell a lie, not meaning to tell one, if you sort of invite him with questions like that, and get him scared the way you're acting. Besides, I says to myself, “so long as Hank has turned into a corpse and that makes him dead, what's the difference whether he's in the blacksmith shop or not?” Fur I hadn't had any plain idea, being such a little kid, that a corpse meant to be dead, and wasn't sure what being dead was like, neither, except they had funerals over you then. I knowed being a corpse must be some sort of a big disadvantage from the way Elmira always says keep away from that cistern door or I'll be one. But if they was going to be a funeral in our house, I'd feel kind o' important, too. They didn't have em every day in our town, and we hadn't never had one of our own.
So Mis' Alexander, she led Elmira into the house, both a-crying, and Mis' Alexander trying to comfort her, and me a tagging along behind holding onto Elmira's skirts and sniffling into them. And in a few minutes all them women Mis' Rogers has told come filing into that room, one at a time, looking sad. Only Old Mis' Primrose, she was awful late getting there because she stopped to put on her bunnet she always wore to funerals with the black Paris lace on it her cousin Arminty White had sent her from Chicago.
When they found out Hank had come home with licker in him and done it himself, they was all excited, and they all crowds around and asts me how, except two as is holding onto Elmira's hands which sets moaning in a chair. And they all asts me questions as to what I seen him do, which if they hadn't I wouldn't have told em the lies I did. But they egged me on to it.
Says one woman: “Danny, you seen him do it in the blacksmith shop?”
I nodded.
“But how did he get in?” sings out another woman. “The door was locked on the outside with a padlock jest now when I come by. He couldn't of killed himself in there and locked the door on the outside.”
I didn't see how he could of done that myself, so I begun to bawl agin and said nothing at all.
“He must of crawled through that little side window,” says another one. “It was open when I come by, if the door was locked. Did you see him crawl through the little side window, Danny?”
I nodded. They wasn't nothing else fur me to do.
“But you hain't tall enough to look through that there window,” says another one to me. “How could you see into that shop, Danny?”
I didn't know, so I didn't say nothing at all; I jest sniffled.
“They is a store box right in under that window,” says another one. “Danny must have clumb onto that store box and looked in after he seen Hank come down the road and crawl through the window. Did you scramble onto the store box and look in, Danny?”
I jest nodded agin.
“And what was it you seen him do? How did he kill himself?” they all asts to oncet.
I didn't know. So I jest bellers and boo-hoos some more. Things was getting past anything I could see the way out of.
“He might of hung himself to one of the iron rings in the jists above the forge,” says another woman. “He clumb onto the forge to tie the rope to one of them rings, and he tied the other end around his neck, and then he stepped off'n the forge. Was that how he done it, Danny?”
I nodded. And then I bellered louder than ever. I knowed Hank was down in that there cistern, a corpse and a mighty wet corpse, all this time; but they kind o' got me to thinking mebby he was hanging out in the shop by the forge, too. And I guessed I'd better stick to the shop story, not wanting to say nothing about that cistern no sooner'n I could help it.
Pretty soon one woman says, kind o' shivery:
“I don't want to have the job of opening the door of that blacksmith shop the first one!”
And they all kind o' shivered then, and looked at Elmira. They says to let some of the men open it. And Mis' Alexander, she says she'll run home and tell her husband right off.
And all the time Elmira is moaning in that chair. One woman says Elmira orter have a cup o' tea, which she'll lay off her bunnet and go to the kitchen and make it fur her. But Elmira says no, she can't a-bear to think of tea, with poor Hennerey a-hanging out there in the shop. But she was kind o' enjoying all that fuss being made over her, too. And all the other women says:
“Poor thing!” But all the same they was mad she said she didn't want any tea, for they all wanted some and didn't feel free without she took it too. Which she said she would after they'd coaxed a while and made her see her duty.
So they all goes out to the kitchen, bringing along some of the best room chairs, Elmira coming too, and me tagging along behind. And the first thing they noticed was them flatirons on top of the cistern door. Mis' Primrose, she says that looks funny. But another woman speaks up and says Danny must of been playing with them while Elmira was over town. She says, “Was you playing they was horses, Danny?”
I was feeling considerable like a liar by this time, but I says I was playing horses with them, fur I couldn't see no use in hurrying things up. I was 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, 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