“The missus didn’t see things that way. She jest gits me be the collar an’ sets me down in an arm-chair, draws me boots, walks off with them an’ me musket an’ hides ’em. She weren’t goin’ to hev no foolin’ ’round the shanty, she sayd.
“Marthy seemed to think that that there settled it, but she didn’t know me, fer all the evenin’, ez I set there be the fire so meek-like, I was a-thinkin’. Scenes wasn’t to my likin’, so I concided I’d jest let on like I hed give up all idee o’ fightin’ Spaynyards, wait tell the family was asleep an’ then vanish.
“At midnight I sets up in bed. The moon was shinin’ th’oo the winder, jest half-lightin’ the room, so I could move ’round without trippin’ over the furnitur’. The missus was a-snorin’ gentle like, an’ overhead in the attic I could hear a soft snifflin’ jest ez a thrasher engine goes ’hen the men has shet down fer dinner. It was the childern asleep. I climbs out over the footboard an’ looks ’round fer me boots. There they was, stickin’ out under the missus’s pillow. Knowin’ I couldn’t git ’em without wakin’ her, I concided to vanish barefoot. But they was one thing agin this, an’ that was that the door was locked an’ some un hed took the key. I tried the winder, but that hed ben nailed shet. Then I gits mad—that there kind o’ quiet-like mad ’hen ye boils up inside an’ hes to keep yer mouth shet. It’s the meanest kind o’ mad, too. It seemed like they was a smile playin’ ’round the missus’s face, an’ that made me sourer than ever, an’ kind o’ spurred me on.
“Well, sirs, ez I stood there in the middle o’ the room thinkin’ what I’d do next an’ wonderin’ whether I hedn’t better jest slip back to bed, me eye ketched sight o’ an ole comf’table that filled a hole in the wall where the daubin’ hed fell out from atween the lawgs. That put me in mind o’ a scheme that I wasn’t long in kerryin’ out, fer the hole was pretty good sized an’ I’m a small man an’ wiry. In less’n no time the comf’table was outen that hole an’ I was in it. I stayed in it, too, fer jest ez me head an’ arms an’ shoulders got out o’ doors I felt a sharp prickin’ in me side. I pushed back an’ a great big splinter jagged me. I tried to go on for’a’d, an’ it jagged me agin so bad I ’most yelled. So I stayed right there—one-half outen the house an’ the other half een. Seemed like time begin to move awful slow then, an’ it ’peared a whole day ’fore the moon went from the top o’ the old lone pine tree into Grandaddy’s chestnut, which is jest twenty feet. Then me feet an’ legs was bakin’ over the stove, an’ the cold Apryl winds was a-whistlin’ down me neck.
“I took to countin’ jest to pass time, an’ I ’low I must ’a’ counted fifteen million afore I heard footsteps up the road. A man come outen the woods an’ inter the moonlit clearin’, where I could see he was ole Hen Bingle. I whistled. He stopped an’ looked. I whistled agin an’ called soft like to him. He sneaked up to the gate an’ looked agin.
“‘Hen, help,’ I whispers.
“‘Who in the heck is you a-growin’ outen the side o’ that shanty?’ he calls, kind o’ hoarse an’ scared. With that he pints a musket at me wery threatenin’.
“‘Hen Bingle!’ sais I. ‘Don’t you dast shoot. It’s me an’ I want you to pull me out. I’m goin’ to war.’
“Then it dawned on him what was up, an’ he come over an’ looks at me. I seen he hed on his blues, too, an’ I knowd ez he hed give his woman the sneak an’ was off to fight Spaynyards. He wanted to laugh, but I told him it were no time fer sech foolin’, but jest to break off that splinter an’ pull me loose.
“Now, Hen’s an obligin’, patriotic kind o’ a feller, an’ tho’, ez he sayd, he hedn’t much time to waste, ez his woman was likely to wake up any minute an’ find him gone, he reached up an’ broke off the splinter. But I fit the hole so tight I couldn’t budge, an’ he sayd he’d pull me out. So he gits up on the wall o’ the well which was jest below me, an’ grabs me be both hands an’ drawed. I’d moved about an inch, ’hen he kicked out wild like an’ hung to me like a ton o’ hay, an’ gasped an’ groaned. I thought that yank hed disj’inted me all over, an’ yells, ‘Let go!’