“‘Don’t you dast let go!’ he sayd, lookin’ up at me kind o’ agonizin’.
“Then I see that neither me nor Hen Bingle was ever goin’ to fight Spaynyards, fer he’d stepped off the wall an’ was hangin’ down inter the well.
“Splinters! Why, I’d ’a’ ruther hed a splinter stickin’ in every inch o’ my body then ole Hen Bingle’s two hundred pound a-drawin’ me from my nat’ral height o’ five feet six inter a man o’ six feet five. That’s what it seemed like. He ast how deep me well was, an’ ’hen I answered forty foot with fifteen foot o’ wotter at the bottom, he sayd he’d never speak to me agin if I let go my holt on him. I sayd I guesst he wouldn’t, an’ he let out a whoop that brought the missus an’ the little ones a-tumblin’ outen the house.
“Marthy stared at us a minute. Then she sais, ‘Where was you a-goin’?’
“‘To fight Spaynyards,’ sais I, sheepish like.
“‘An’ you, Hen Bingle?’ she asts.
“‘Same,’ gasps Hen.
“‘Does your wife know you’re out?’ sais the missus, stern ez a jedge.
“‘No,’ sais Hen.