Drop that glass and take the other one, he whispered.
He gave the remaining glass of Whiskey to Henry
just as the clock began to strike mid-night.
Henry emptied the glass. His face grew whiter
and whiter.
Oils, he said, I’m feeling sick. I want to
lie down.
Henry was asleep almost before the words
were out of his mouth.
In a moment, his two friends picked him up then
carried him into the bedroom. They closed the door and came back. They seemed
to be getting ready to leave, so I said, please don’t go, gentlemen, she will
not know me. I’m a stranger to her.
They looked at each other.
His wife has been dead for nineteen years,
Tom said.
Dead? I whispered.
Dead was, he said.
She went to see her parents about six
months after he got married. On the way back, on the Saturday evening in June
when she was almost here, the Indians captured her. No one never saw her again.
Henry lost his mind, he think she is still alive.
When June comes, he thinks she has gone on
her trip to see her parents. Then he begins to wait for her to come back. He gets
out that all (that old) letter, and we come around
for a visit, so he can read it to us.
On the Saturday night, she is supposed to
come home. We come here to be with him. We put a sleeping drug in his drink, so
he will sleep through the night. Then, he is all right for another year.
Joe picked up his hand and his guitar. We
have done this every June for nineteen years, he said. The first year, there
are twenty seven of us, now just two of us are left.
He opened the door of the pretty little
house, and the two old men disappeared into the darkness of the Stanesslow (Stanislaus).
You have just heard the American Story- The
Californians Tale. It was written by Mark Twin and adapted for Special English
by D.D. |