How Old Wash Died
By John Trotwood Moore.
I had not seen the old man for several months, but I supposed he was still prospering on his little farm, when he walked in the other day without knocking, took his seat by the fire, and casually remarked that March was always a bad month on rheumatism.
“Why, how are you, old man?” I said, laying down my pen and seeing him for the first time. “I haven’t seen you for several months.”
“No, I don’t reck’n you is,” he said quietly, “an’ de reason is, I ain’t seed myself—I’ve been dead!”
“What!” I exclaimed—“dead—are you joking?”
I looked at him closely, but I saw no evidence of insanity—nothing to indicate that he had yet reached his dotage. However, I thought it best to pass him something for his rheumatism. He quaffed it off so naturally that I knew he was all right and would tell it in his own way.
“Ennything happened ter speak of sense I be’n dead?” he asked, indifferently enough, as he smacked his lips and wiped them on the back of his hand.
I was anxious to hear how he had died, but I knew any eagerness on my part would spoil it all, so I replied:
“Why, no, old man—nothing new. But you have heard of Jupiter Pluvius, perhaps, and his home above the clouds. Well, he has kept busy this spring with his watering pot.”