The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1913-05-26
CHAPTER l.
in the cistern.


 HN ways had more or less agger-
 vation mixed up with it. I might of had one jest as well as not if Old Hank Walters hadn't been so all- fred, internal bullheaded about things fin gineral, and his wife Elnnira blame sight worse. and both of 'em ready to row at minutes notice and stick to it foreveFmore.
 Hank, he was considerable of 1usher.s One Saturday night, when he come home from the village in his usual fix, he stumbled over a basket that was setting on his front steps. Then he got up and drawed back his foot unsteady to kick it plump into kingdom come. Jest then he .hearn FL mira opening the door behind him, and he turned his head sudden. But the kick was already started into the air, and when he turns he can't stop it. And so Hank gets twisted and falls down and steps on himself. That bas- ket lets out yowl.
 s'It's kittens.'' says Hank, still set ting down and staring at that there basket All of which, you understand, I am a-tel1ing you from hearsay, as the lawyers always asts you in court.
 Elmira, she sings out:
 Kittens, nothing! It's a babyr'
 And she opens the basket and looks in and it was me 'sHennerey Walters she says, pick ing me up and shaking me at him like was a cr1me-''Hennerey Walters, where did you get this here baby ?'' She always calls him Hennerey when she is getting ready to give him fits
 Hank, he scratches his head, for he's kind O confuddIed, and thinks mebby he really has brought this bas- ket with him He tries to think of all the places he has been that night But he can't think of any place but Bill Nolsn's saloon. So he says:
 ''Elmira, honest, ain't had but one drink all day. And then he kind O rouses up little bit and says:
 ''That a baby you got there, El- mira2'' And then he says, dignifed, ssSo fur as that's consarned, Elmira. where did you get that there baby?''
 She looks at him, and she sees he don't really know where come from. Old Hank mostly was truthful when Hckered up. for that matter, and she fnowed it, fur he couldn't think up no lies excepting a gineral denial when in toxicated up to the gilIs.
 EImira looks into the basket. They was one of them long rubber tubes stringing out of bottle that was in it, and had been sucking that bottle when interrupted. And they wasn't nothing else in that basket but big thick shawl which had been wrapped all around me, and Elmira often wore It to meeting afterward- She goes inside and she looks at the bottle and me by the light, and Old Hank, he comes stumbling in afterward and sets avz J,af~ +r, rrl% Er,fI Columbia for coming home in that shape, sO's he can row back agin, like they done every Saturday night.
 Flowed in the glass of the bottle was the name. Daniel, Dunne and Com pany." Anybody but them two old Egnoramuses could of told right off that that didn't have nothing to do with me. but was jest the company that made them kind of bottles But she reads it out loud three or four Nmes. and then she says:
 ssHis name is Daniel Dunne," she says
 HAnd Company" says Hank, feeling right quarrelsome.
 ssCompany ain't no name.'' says she
 seWhy hain't it. I'd like to know ?? says Hank "I knowed a man onct whose name was Farmer. and if a farmers name why ain't company name too?'
 Ills name is Daniel Dunne," says Elnira. quietlike, but not lodging a row, neither.
 And Company says Hank getting Bn to his feet. like he always done when he seen trouble coming When Old Hank was full of Ticker he know Dd jest the ways to aggervate her the RoTEt
 She might of banged him one the same as usual and got her own eye blacked also. the same as usual, but jest then lets out another big yowl and she gives me some milk
 guess the only reason they ever kep' me at first was so they could quarrel