Because it seems likely Satan
is going to wrastle all night long, like he done with
the angel Jacob, and they ought to be prepared.
So they done it. They went and they come back
with vittles and they made up hot coffee and they
feasted that preacher and theirselves and Elmira
and me, all right in Hank's hearing.
And Hank was getting hungry himself. And he
was cold in that water. And the fish was nibbling
at him. And he was getting cussed out and weak
and soaked full of despair. And they wasn't no
way fur him to set down and rest. And he was
scared of getting a cramp in his legs, and sinking
down with his head under water and being drownded.
He said afterward he'd of done the last with pleasure
if they was any way of suing that crowd fur murder.
So along about ten o'clock he sings out:
"I give in, gosh dern ye! I give in. Let me
out and I'll sign your pesky pledge!"
Brother Cartwright was fur getting a ladder and
letting him climb out right away. But Elmira, she
says:
"Don't you do it, Brother Cartwright; don't
you do it. You don't know Hank Walters like I
does. If he oncet gets out o' there before he's
signed that pledge, he won't never sign it."
So they fixed it up that Brother Cartwright was
to write out a pledge on the inside leaf of the Bible,
and tie the Bible onto a string, and a lead pencil
onto another string, and let the strings down to
Hank, and he was to make his mark, fur he couldn't
write, and they was to be pulled up agin.
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