Hank,
he says all right, and they done it. But jest as
Hank was making his mark on the leaf of the book,
that preacher done what I has always thought was
a mean trick. He was lying on the floor with his
head and shoulders into that hole as fur as he could,
holding a lantern way down into it, so as Hank could
see. And jest as Hank made that mark he spoke
some words over him, and then he says:
"Now, Henry Walters, I have baptized you, and
you are a member of the church."
You'd a thought Hank would of broke out cussing
agin at being took unexpected that-a-way, fur he
hadn't really agreed to nothing but signing the
pledge. But nary a cuss. He jest says: "Now,
you get that ladder."
They got it, and he clumb up into the kitchen,
dripping and shivering.
"You went and baptized me in that water?"
he asts the preacher. The preacher says he has.
"Then," says Hank, "you done a low-down trick
on me. You knowed I has made my brags I never
jined no church nor never would jine. You knowed
I was proud of that. You knowed that it was my
glory to tell of it, and that I set a heap of store by
it in every way. And now you've went and took
it away from me! You never fought it out fair
and square, neither, man playing to outlast man,
like you done with this here pledge, but you sneaked
it in on me when I wasn't looking.
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