But Elmira only answered: “You was drunk when you fell in there, Hank Walters. And you can stay in there till you get a better temper on to you.” And all the women laughed and said: “That's right, Elmira! Spunk up to him!” There was considerable splashing around in the water for a couple of minutes. And then, of a sudden, a live fish came a-whirling out of that hole in the floor, which he catched with his hands. It was a big bullhead, and its whiskers around its mouth was stiffened into spikes, and it landed kerplump on to Mis' Rogers' lap, a-wiggling, and it horned her on the hands. She was that surprised she fainted. Mis' Primrose, she got up and licked the fish back into the cistern and said, right decided: “Elmira Walters, if you let Hank out of that cistern before he's signed the pledge and promised to jine the church, you're a bigger fool than I take you for. A woman has got to make a stand!” And all the women sing out: “Send for Brother Cartwright! Send for Brother Cartwright!” And they sent me scooting down the street to get him quick. He was the preacher. I never stopped to tell but two or three people on the way to his house, but they must have spread the news quick, for when I got back with him it looked like the whole town was at our house. It was along about dusk by this time, and it was a prayer meeting night at the church. Mr. Cartwright told his wife to tell the folks that came to the prayer meeting he'd be back before long, and to wait for him. But she really told them where he'd gone, and what for. Mr. Cartwright marched right into our kitchen. All the chairs in the house was in there, and the women were talking and laughing, and they had sent to the Alexanderses for their chairs, and to the Rogerses for theirs. Every once in a while there would be an awful burst of language come rolling up from the hole where that unregenerate old sinner was cooped up. I have travelled around considerable since those days, and I have mixed up along with many kinds of people in many different places, and some of them were cussers to admire. But I never heard such cussing before or since as old Hank did that night. He busted his own records and he rose higher than his own water marks for previous years. I wasn't anything but a little kid then, not fit to admire the full beauty of it. They were deep down cusses that came from the heart. Looking back at it after these years, I can well believe what Brother Cartwright said himself that night--that it wasn't _natural_ cussing, and that some higher power, like a demon or an evil sperrit, must have entered into Hank's human carcase and given that terrible eloquence to his remarks. It busted out every few minutes, and the women would put their fingers into their ears until a spell was over. And it was personal, too. Hank would listen till he heard a woman's voice he knew, and then he would let loose on her family, going back to her grandfathers and working downward to her children's children.