it was an old lunker of an eal and when it lit on
the ground it twisted and squirmed and thrashed
round like a snaik and of al the screaching and tirning
of back summersets by the wimmen whitch were
fat and coodent get up quick, and of all the holding
up of skerts and hipering for the woods by the thin
wimmen you never saw in all your life.
and the men hollored and got out of the way of
that eal as quick as the wimmen and one decon hollered
what in hel and damnation are you trying to
do you cussid fool, and sum of the others sed things
i gess they wished they hadent. me and Beany was
triing to get that eal of the hook. i got my foot on
his neck and he squermed round my leg and got my
britches leg all covered with slime. bimeby i got
him off and into my boat, and when i went back old
Mrs. Sofire Peezley was having a spell. i never seen
ennyone have a spell before and it was very interesting.
she screached and cried and then threw her
head back and laffed and claped her hands together
and roled her eys and gulped and swallered, and the
wimmen were patting her on the back and making
her smell of amonia botles and calling her dear and
blesid lamn, and poar darling and talking to her as if
she was a baby, and wimmen were coming back
from the woods and saying it was a burning shaim
and looking at me mad and saying i had aught to be
in jale. and old E. O. Luvrin jawed me but it
dident do no good becaus his lip was so swole that
nobody cood understand what he sed. but i sed i
aint done nothing what are you pichin into me for?
Then a woman sed you are the wirst boy in town
and you are jest like your father was, and i sed i
gess if you gnew what my father sed about you you
woodent say much more and she tirned red and sed
if that boy stays here i wont. it is a shaim to have
sutch a boy at a desent picnic or with desent peeple.
then they all got round me and jawed me and the
minister sed i must go home and i sed all rite if
i have got to go i wil taik my boat, and he sed verry
well take your boat and go. i am verry mutch
disapointed in you. then i sed ennyway i want my
fifty cents and they all sed dont you give him a cent
he has been a newsense. then i sed it may be all
rite to call a feller a newsence after he has rew about
a hundred peeple more than fifty miles and luged
barils stuff up the bank and made reaths and picked
flowers and rescued peeple from drownding whitch
dident know enuf to sit in a boat, but i aint going
till i get my fifty cents then they sed if i dident
go rite off they wood lick me and i woodent get my
fifty cents.
so i got into my boat and rew up river. then i
rew back and kept in the middle of the river and
began to holer things to Beany. i gnew they
coodent drive me off the river so i hollered to Beany
did you see old Misses Peezley have that fit? gosh i
bet she maiks old man Peezley stand round. peraps
that is why he is baldheaded. Beany dident dass to
say nothing.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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