Dag
Daughtry, after he had compassed his fourth bottle, confided in monologue
to the Shortlands planter that night just before bedtime. "Take Killeny
Boy. He don't do things for me mechanically, just because he's learned
to do 'm. There's more to it. He does 'm because he likes me. I can't
give you the hang of it, but I feel it, I _know_ it.

"Maybe, this is what I'm drivin' at. Killeny can't talk, as you 'n' me
talk, I mean; so he can't tell me how he loves me, an' he's all love,
every last hair of 'm. An' actions speakin' louder 'n' words, he tells
me how he loves me by doin' these things for me. Tricks? Sure. But
they make human speeches of eloquence cheaper 'n dirt. Sure it's speech.
Dog-talk that's tongue-tied. Don't I know? Sure as I'm a livin' man
born to trouble as the sparks fly upward, just as sure am I that it makes
'm happy to do tricks for me . . . just as it makes a man happy to lend a
hand to a pal in a ticklish place, or a lover happy to put his coat
around the girl he loves to keep her warm. I tell you . . . "

Here, Dag Daughtry broke down from inability to express the concepts
fluttering in his beer-excited, beer-sodden brain, and, with a stutter or
two, made a fresh start.

"You know, it's all in the matter of talkin', an' Killeny can't talk.
He's got thoughts inside that head of his--you can see 'm shinin' in his
lovely brown eyes--but he can't get 'em across to me. Why, I see 'm
tryin' to tell me sometimes so hard that he almost busts. There's a big
hole between him an' me, an' language is about the only bridge, and he
can't get over the hole, though he's got all kinds of ideas an' feelings
just like mine.

"But, say! The time we get closest together is when I play the harmonica
an' he yow-yows. Music comes closest to makin' the bridge. It's a
regular song without words. And . . . I can't explain how . . . but just
the same, when we've finished our song, I know we've passed a lot over to
each other that don't need words for the passin'."

"Why, d'ye know, when I'm playin' an' he's singin', it's a regular duet
of what the sky-pilots 'd call religion an' knowin' God. Sure, when we
sing together I'm absorbin' religion an' gettin' pretty close up to God.
An' it's big, I tell you. Big as the earth an' ocean an' sky an' all the
stars. I just seem to get hold of a sense that we're all the same stuff
after all--you, me, Killeny Boy, mountains, sand, salt water, worms,
mosquitoe