I saw then I was to blame somehow, and I wished I hadn't said anything about Hank being a corpse. And I made up my mind I wouldn't say anything more. So when she grabbed hold of me and asked me again what I meant I blubbered harder, as a kid will, and said nothing. I wished I hadn't set those flatirons on the cistern lid, for it came to me all at once that even if Hank had turned into a corpse I hadn't any right to keep him in the cistern. Just then old Mis' Rogers, one of our neighbours, came by, while Elmira was shaking me and yelling at me and asking how it happened, and had I seen it, and where was Hank's corpse. “What's Danny been doing now?” asked Mis' Rogers--me being always up to something. Elmira turned and saw her and gave a whoop and hollered out: “Hank is dead!” And she threw her apron over her head and sat right down in the path and boo-hooed like a baby. And I bellered and howled all the louder. Mis' Rogers, she never waited to ask anything more. She saw she had a piece of news, and she wanted to be the first to spread it. She ran right across the road to where the Alexanderses lived. Mis' Alexander, she saw her coming and unhooked the screen door and Mis' Rogers hollered out before she reached the porch: “Hank Walters is dead!” And then she went footing it up the street. There was a black plume on her bonnet, nodding the same as on a hearse, and she was into and out of seven front yards in less than five minutes. Mis' Alexander she ran across the road to where we were, and kneeled down and put her arm around Elmira, who was still rocking back and forth in the path, and she said: “How do you know he's dead, Elmira? I saw him not more than an hour ago.” “Danny saw it all,” says Elmira. Mis' Alexander turned to me and wanted to know what happened and how it happened and where it happened. But I didn't want to say anything about that cistern. So I busted out crying all over again and I said: “He was drunk and he came home drunk and he did it then, and that's how he did it.” “And you saw him?” she asked. I nodded. “Where is he?” says she and Elmira, both together. But I was scared to say anything about that cistern, so I just bawled some more. “Was it in the blacksmith shop?” asks Mis' Alexander. I nodded my head again, and let it go at that. “Is he in there now?” she wants to know.