, and swat them on
the chin to finish off with."

"Well, suppose they don't study their physiologies like you do, and hit
YOU in the wrong place, and kill you, would you want THEM hanged by the
neck until they were dead, to pay for it?"

"I don't think I'd want anything if I were dead," he said. "I wonder
how it feels to die. Now THAT man knew. I'd like to be hanged enough
to find out how it goes, and then come back, and brag about it. I
don't think it hurts much; I believe I'll try it."

So Leon took the rope Laddie lowered the baskets with, and threw it
over a big limb. Then he rolled up a barrel and stood on it and put my
sunbonnet on with the crown over his face, for a black cap, and made
the rope into a slip noose over his head, and told me to stand back by
the apple tree and hold the rope tight, until he said he was hanged
enough. Then he stepped from the barrel. It jerked me toward him
about a yard, as he came down smash! on his feet. I held with all my
might, but he was too heavy--and falling that way. So he went to
trying to fix some other plan, and I told him the sensible thing to do
would be for him to hang me, because he'd be strong enough to hold me
and I could tell him how it felt just as well. So we fixed me up like
we had him, and when Leon got the rope stretched, he wrapped it twice
around the apple tree so it wouldn't jerk him as it had me, and when he
said "Ready," I stepped from the barrel. The last thing I heard was
Leon telling me to say when I was hanged enough. I was so heavy, the
rope stretched, and I went down until it almost tore off my head, and I
couldn't get a single breath, so of course I didn't tell him, and I
couldn't get on the barrel, and my tongue went out, and my chest
swelled up, and my ears roared, and I kicked and struggled, and all the
time I could hear Leon laughing, and shouting to keep it up, that I was
dying fine; only he didn't know that I really was, and at last I didn't
feel or know anything more.

When I came to, I was lying on the grass, while father was pumping my
arms, and Laddie was pouring creek water on my face from his hat, and
Leon was running around in circles, clear crazy. I heard father tell
him he'd give him a scutching he'd remember to the day of his death;
but inasmuch as I had told Leon to do it, I had to grab father and hold
to him tight as I could, until I got breath enough to explain how it
happened. Even then I wasn't sure what he was