Bill Morgan's Day

t. Bill Morgan's Day by Samantha Clementine Things was kintly rough out Pasimmon Road. The law hardly ever come out there, and nobody dared to say anything even when they did. And Joe, he was jist startin to learn how to use his steely, gray eyes. He'd hyeard how if a body had steely gray eyes, he could make mighty nigh anybody set down. So he turned his'n up to full power, much as he could fer his wobbely knees, and he fixed them on Buster. And he says, "Buster, ef you want trouble, you shore have come to the right place to git it." And he kintly drawled her out, the way it was described in the book he'd jist read. Well, Buster must of read the same book, fer he fixed his'n. And he says, "Ye don't say?!" And he kintly drawled her out, too; and Joe begin to lose his shine fer the whole business. Maybe it wasn't too important, after all, he says. But seemed like Buster, he was bound to conclude the matter, and he says, "Sence ye brung her up . . ." And Joe, he tuck a hard whoopin. And as he walked off jist about busted and awful bad putt down, somebody in the crowd that was always around Buster says, "Aha, Bill Morgan. Your day finely got hyere, didn't it?" And I couldn't make no sense of that at all, though I'd hyeared it more times than I could count sence I was that high. So I asked around about it. Well, it seems that they was a feller a long time ago down in the hills of Kintucky whur the folks out on Pasimmon Road most all hails from that was named Bill Morgan. And Bill was s'posed to been a vury bad feller that liked to push little younguns around and have sport with widder ladies; and he kept hisself entertained that a way a good number of 4 yurs. And, to make a long tale short, one time he met a widder lady with a gun. But Bill was said to of been foretold the matter the night before it passed, by a sperit that tetched him on the shoulder and said, "Bill Morgan, your day has come." Well, as the story went, Bill never b'lieved in sperits and laughed the whole thing off and told it fer a joke. Said it was some kind of a pickle he et, though it frighted him some at the time and before witness. And he got his brains blowed out. So, ever time after that, when somebody didn't behave too good and asked fer it agin and agin, the folks'd say, "Bill Morgan, your day '11 come." Well, like I say, that's the way the story went. By the time this thing with Joe and Buster tuck place, it had shore got into the wrong hands and wasn't hardly the same story no more. Couldn't a been. But I never ketched on to that right off, so I thought it was all hog warsh. Fer I seen clear that Joe was in the right, and Buster was always a pushin and a proddin somebody and had a crowd behint him all the time. So I says, "Humph! Looks like they's more Bill Morgans around hyere than they is anybody else!" And that was when somethin hit me right hard in the back. And I gulped and swallered, and lit out after Joe. And he went all the way to Kintucky, me righl on his heels. I had kin folks all over Kintucky. And I had some at Ruggles whur Joe went, too. So I holed in with some of them to keep a eye on him. He had brains, but he wasn't awful stout. And it tuck a lot of lookin to keep him from fallin a tree on hisself or somethin. But by and by he begin to take on some muscle and I seen they was maybe some hope fer him. And I got work around and stayed close. Me and Joe...