“Seems like you’re lookin’ mighty glum,” said the Storekeeper. He had ceased his whittling and was examining every detail of the wanderer’s dress and physiognomy. “Might s’pose ye was in love agin.”
“You air the sentimentalist tramp I ever seen,” the Miller cried. “Every time ye comes th’oo these parts, it’s a new un. Does ye think the weemen is so almighty blind ez to git struck on a hoodoo like you?”
“I keeps me passions an’ me shortcomin’s to meself,” replied the wanderer after he had lighted his corncob pipe. “I’ve had a heap o’ hard luck. I wouldn’t min’ gittin’ in love or in jail fer murder sep’rate, but both at oncet is too much even fer a man like me.”
“Hedgins!” the Loafer exclaimed, edging toward the end of the bench furthest from the vagrant. “In jail fer murder!”
A faint smile flitted across the face of the Tramp. Then he began his story:
“In jail fer murder an’ in love wit’ the Sher’ff’s dotter--that’s exactly what happened to me. It’s onjust; it ain’t right, it ain’t, even fer a man o’ my shortcomin’s. Let’s see. This is hay harvest, ain’t it. Well, it was jest about corn-plantin’ it all come about. I’d been workin’ me way easy up along the Sussykehanner, an’ one night put up wit’ an ole feller named Noah Punk, who lived in a lawg house at the foot o’ the big mo’ntain this side o’ Pillersville. They was no one there but him an’ his woman. She was a bad-tempered creetur’ an’ made things hum ’round that ranch when me an’ the ole man was playin’ kyards after supper. They put me to bed in the garret, an’ next day I set out agin. Punk he sayd he’d walk up the road a piece wit’ me, an’ he did. We parted at a crossroads two mile from his house. That was the last I ever seen of him. I’d never thot no more of him nuther ef it hedn’t been that two days later, when I was joggin’ easy like into Jimstontown, I was ’rested--’rested, mind ye, fer the murder o’ Noah Punk. I never knowd jest what it was all ’bout tell I was comf’table fixed in the kyounty jail. An’ then I didn’t keer, fer I’d met the Sher’ff’s dotter.
“Oh, but she was a star! Jest ez plump ez ye make ’em, wit’ a dimple, an’ yaller shiny hair, an’ jest ez red ez a ripe rambo apple. When she brought me up me supper the fust night, I ast her what I was up fer, an’ she tol’ me.