“I got the main pints o’ the story from Tom himself,” he began. “He used to tell it ’hen he stayed at my pap’s place ’hen I was a bit of a boy. He allus told it the same way, too, which was evydence of it bein’ true. I wish all you uns could ’a’ heard him. Mighty, but it was a treat! Why, he was never in our house two minutes till us children was runnin’ ’round him callin’ to him to tell us how he done Si Berrybush. But he’d never give us a word till he’d opened his pedler’s pack an’ sold somethin’ to Ma an’ the girls. Next it was his supper an’ a pipe. Then I’d climb on his one knee an’ my sister Solly on the other. Ed an’ May ’ud git on the wood-box an’ Pap an’ Ma on the settee. It took th’ee pipes to wind Tom up. Then he’d go beautiful. The words ’ud role out like music an’ you’d fergit the kitchen an’ the folks around. You’d be out in the woods with him, steppin’ along with him hour after hour ez he was carryin’ Si Berrybush to freedom. You’d see the things ez he saw, an’ you’d feel the things ez he felt. Now ye was low down an’ discouraged. Everything was dark ez ye stumbled on an’ on, achin’ in every limb, expectin’ each minute ’ud be your last. Now ye was hopin’. They was a chance fer ye yit. The light broke. The load was gone. Si Berrybush was gone, an’ ye was back in the ole kitchen agin, with Pap an’ Ma sound asleep on the settee. “Ez I was sayin’, Tom Buttonporgie stood six feet two in his stockin’s an’ was a most powerful man, fer walkin’ day after day, luggin’ a great pack on his back, hed give him the muscles of an ox. He used to come to this walley oncet every summer so he knowd well o’ Si Berrybush, who was the desperatest man ever seen in these parts. Si’s ockypation was robbin’. He made his headquarters in the mo’ntain acrosst the river. His hand was agin everybody an’ everybody knowd it, yit he never was catched. Oncet a pedler was found dead in the bushes with a bullet hole in his head an’ his pack turned inside out. They sayd Berrybush did it, so he went down to the Sheriff’s an’ give himself up. They was no evydence an’ he walked home agin. A couple o’ times things like that happened an’ yit they was never an ioty o’ proof. He’d ’a’ died a nat’ral death, I guess, ef he hedn’t forgot himself one night in the willage an’ shot Joe Hyde. They was too many fellys handy who hed grudges agin him to let him git away, an’ they clapped him in jail, tried him an’ sentenced him to be hung.