“It was like this,” said Mrs. Churchill, taking on the air of a narrator of important events. “The sheriff and me was sittin’ on the porch, talkin’ as pleasant as could be and nothin’ to give a body warnin’. We was kind of arguin’ like about my oldest’s shoes and the way he runs through a pair in less’n a month. The sheriff he was holdin’ it was right and proper boys should wear out shoes, and I was sayin’ it was a sin and a shame sich poor leather was got off on the public. Well, just there the sheriff he got up and says he was goin’ to pump himself a cold drink, and he went into the house, and I could hear the pump squeakin’, but no thought of anythin’. He didn’t come back, and he didn’t come back, so I got up, thinkin’ to myself, what in tunket’s he up to now and kind of wonderin’ if mebby he’d fell in a fit or suthin’.” Carmel took note that Mrs. Churchill talked without the air of punctuation marks. “I went out to the back door and looked, and the’ wa’n’t hide or hair of him in sight. I hollered, but he didn’t answer....” Mrs. Churchill closed her eyes and two great tears oozed between the tightly shut lids and poised on the uplands of her chubby cheeks. “And that’s all I know,” she said in a dull voice. “He hain’t never come back.” “Have you any idea _why_ he disappeared?” “I got my idees. My husband was a man sot in his ways--not but what I could manage him when he needed managin’, and a better or more generous provider never drew the breath of life. But he calc’lated to do his duty. I guess he done it too well!” “What do you mean, Mrs. Churchill?” “The sheriff was an honest man. When the folks elected him they chose him because he was honest and nobody couldn’t move him out of a path he set his foot to travel. He was close mouthed, too, but I seen for weeks past he had suthin’ on his mind that he wouldn’t come out with. He says to me once, ‘If folks knew what they was livin’ right next door to!’ He didn’t say no more, but that was a lot for him....” Suddenly her eyes glinted and her lips compressed. “My husband was done away with,” she said, “because he was a good man and a smart man, and I’m prayin’ to God to send down vengeance on them that done it.” She paused a moment and her face took on the grimness of righteous anger. “It’s reported to me they’re settin’ afoot rumors that he run off with some baggage--him that couldn’t bear me out of sight these dozen year; him that couldn’t git up in the mornin’ nor go to bed at night without me there to help him! They lie! I know my man and I trust him. He didn’t need no woman but me, and I didn’t need no man but him.... Some says he stole county money. They lie, too, and best for them they don’t make no sich sayin’s in my hearin’....” “What do you think is at bottom of it all?”