The day Uncle Caleb sent him to pay old Merrick in Kingston I was just out of Elmira a week and I was shuting craps with coreys farmhand near his house so he asks me to go with him to Kingston to the old mans and I says no I wouldn’t. Anyways I follered him. I knowed he had over a hundred dollars. I caught up with him an I says tell your granfather yer lost it an we’ll go out west I dare you. He says no he wouldn so I follers him and went in the cellar way of Merricks by the window that was busted. It was all in the bushes like. I hered him payin Merrick upstairs and he gives Merrick the devil talkin like a regler kid. He got so mad when he couldn get out the kitchen door he climed out the winder then I went up and soked old Merrick with the iron and took the money that was in a onvelop and a tin box to. There was papers I didn know how I culd get money on them so I buried them in our old well in West Hurley. Anyways I had near two thousand ter go out west with en I sends money back sos they’ll think im all right and workin. I sends my mother five hundred. She thot I was married en working en everything. Las year I was took sick with my hart en couldn work no more en I was in hard luck. I reads in a paper how old Hurley is all so yer can see it in dry weather en I come east ter get the papers I left in the well sos I could turn em inter money, but thats all bunk anyways it ain’t dry long enough for the old village ter show yet. I waited all this time en go there every night till I get sick. Now its a month it ain’t rained en nothing doing yer cant see a thing so I says its all bunk. When I didn have no more money left I come here. I guess Im a goner now I have to spells yesterday. I couldn go ashore since the first one I had while I was swimming out but that wasn much. Now I got em all the time anyways the game is up but if anybody says Im lying they can see fer thereselves what I hid if it ever gets dry enough. Joe Ganley. P S it was me killed old Merrick. As long as my mother is dead please notify Al Burnam 82 Kent St Dawson Ohio why I didn come back en tell him he can have my things in the room en he can tell Doc Conway in the hospital he was right I gotter hand it to him. Sent word ter Alice Darrel too she lives at 407 Harrison street Dawson. I gotter sit up it hurts when I lay down and it hurts ter write. P. S. its straight about the—” Here the narrative broke off. Tom paused, too dumbfounded to replace the pages in his pocket. For a few seconds he was like a statue. Then he moved along the street in a kind of trance, bumped into a man, was vaguely conscious of saying “Excuse me.” And just a trifle more conscious of asking someone else where the police station was.