“So it come about with Pete, all along the line.  He’d gone and got married so ordinary it wouldn’t attracted nobuddy’s attention, only he was so overjoyed to find that I took sides with him that he sasshayed gayly forth for firewood and cut himself in the small of the back with the ax.  Don’t ask me how he done it, It’s the only case on record.  Pete was thinkin’ of somethin’ at the time, and could only remember a sudden pain in the back.  So Pete was laid on the bed of sufferin’ oncet more, him bein’ so uset to it he took it without a holler, only this time he thought it was prutty serious.

“‘Zeke,’ says he, ’I’ve come to the cash-up so frequent I dunno just what’s about to happen, but if it should be I was goin’ to die for fair this time, I want Maggy to git my money, and I want you to take it to her.’

“‘All right, Pete, I will,’ says I.

“‘Shack along, then,’ says he.

“Pete mixed me some.  ‘I ain’t goin’ to leave you like this,’ I says.

“‘Yes, you be, too,’ he says, sassy as thunder.  ’The only time I kin git what I want is when I’m sick a-bed.  I ain’t goin’ to rest happy nor do nothin’—­not eat nor drink—­till I know that woman has the chink.  I can’t say I’ve made a great job of livin’, but I’m goin’ to die like a house a-fire, if so the play comes that way,’ he says.  ’You put a little grub and water nigh me, and I’ll just figger on being a full-sized man for oncet; you don’t understand what a power of good it does me to think about it,’ says he.

“Well, he had me to a standstill.  It was cussed to leave a hurt man all alone, but I could easy appreciate the way he felt.  If a man can’t take no pride in himself the hull blamed business comes down to shovelin’ dirt for nothin’.

“‘Pete, I’ll do it,’ I says, and I shook hands with him.

“‘Now, see that!’ says he.  ’That’s the first time you’ve ever treated me like an ekal, Zeke; and I can tell you I don’t like to be pitied no more’n any other man.  God knows there wouldn’t ‘a’ been a perter monkey in the bunch, if so it hadn’t come I was scart, or thinkin’ of somethin’ else, when a hot-box arrived.  The good Lord took the trouble to make me, and it seems kind of onjustifiable for me to prove He plumb wasted His time.  You tell Maggy I done it for her.  I ain’t hidin’ my light under a bushel, because I need it to see by.  Ouch!’ says he.  ‘This racket hurts!’

“I reckon it did.  I sewed him up with a piece of deer-sinew and a darning-needle.  Never was a great hand at tailorin’, nohow, and Pete’s hide was that tough I mostly had to pound the needle through with a chunk of wood.

“Well, I fixed him comfortable as I could, and prepared to start.

“‘Zeke,’ says he, ’don’t’—­he kinder swallered hard—­’don’t be no longer’n you kin help,’ says he.  There come a tear in his eye.  ‘An’ take my respects to Maggy,’ says he.

“‘Shaw, Pete!’ says I.  ‘Now, don’t you go borrowin’ no trouble—­that’s so easy to git without collaterial, it ain’t worth the time.  I’ll be back imejate.’  I patted him on the shoulder and he squeezed my hand hard.