the wood sum slep
in the hammucks and sum set down in cerkles and
played gaims and told storys. they was one big
cerkle whitch had the minister and most of the
decons and their wifes and all the old wimmen and
they was playing childrens gaims and hollering and
laffing jest like children. old E. O. Luverin the feller
whitch had been stang by a hornit on the underlip
had told me to bate a hook and set my pole for
a big hornpout or an eal. so i done that before dinner.
i put a big steal hook on the line and bated it
with the bigest grashoper i cood find, an old lunker,
one of them kind that maiks a noise lika a nutmeg
graiter and when it flise ratles its wings. then i
unwound al my line and threw the bate out as
fur as i cood and set the pole with a croched stick
rite down in the sand by the boats. i was lissening
to the peeple playing gaims when sum feller hollered
Plupy you got a bite and i looked and saw that my
line was tite and my pole bending. so i hipered
down the bank and grabed the pole and pulled in.
i had a big one on the hook and he pulled terrible,
but i yanked him out and i pulled so hard that he
went way over my head and rite in the middle of the
cerkle of peeple.

it was an old lunker of an eal and when it lit on
the ground it twisted and squirmed and thrashed
round like a snaik and of al the screaching and tirning
of back summersets by the wimmen whitch were
fat and coodent get up quick, and of all the holding
up of skerts and hipering for the woods by the thin
wimmen you never saw in all your life.

and the men hollored and got out of the way of
that eal as quick as the wimmen and one decon hollered
what in hel and damnation are you trying to
do you cussid fool, and sum of the others sed things
i gess they wished they hadent. me and Beany was
triing to get that eal of the hook. i got my foot on
his neck and he squermed round my leg and got my
britches leg all covered with slime. bimeby i got
him off and into my boat, and when i went back old
Mrs. Sofire Peezley was having a spell. i never seen
ennyone have a spell before and it was very interesting.
she screached and cried and then threw her
head back and laffed and claped her hands together
and roled her eys and gulped and swallered, and the
wimmen were patting her on the back and making
her smell of amonia botles and calling her dear and
blesid lamn, and poar darling and talking to her as if
she was a baby, and wimmen were coming back
fr