When I forkt off from Lissener it musve ben about a 6fag after 1st seeing that boat with the dead bloak in it. I stil had plenny of time and a nuff to get to Widders Dump befor day lite. I begun to get in front of my self thinking how Iwd do when I got there. Even if Id sust it right as Belnot Phist wer agenst the Ram I dint know how things stood at Widders Dump. For all I knowit they cud all be hard Ram there and Phist permuch a persner amongst them. I neverd had much to do with any of them formers only Chalker Marchman at the digging and chatting some times to the bloaks at the reddy. I cudnt realy see my self stepping up to that gate and saying Trubba not. On the other han if I slyd in over the fents how wud I fynd Phists shelter befor some 1 foun me? And the woal time I wer thinking them thots part of me wer heading for Cambry with Lissener wylst a nother part wer wunnering when some thing wud come up to stop me. Realy I cudnt beleave I wer going to be let to walk all over Inland any where I fantsyt and partly I wantit some thing to stop me. Becaws I knowit by then any thing at all myt happen and parbly wud. 1ce that eye starts roaling itwl roal right off the board and gone so easy. So easy. You can go the worl a way so easy. This nite Im writing down here it wer jus only the same nite of that very same day I gone over the Widders Dump fents in the morning. Which that seamt time back years back and long long pas. Yet here I wer now coming back to that same fents and thinking how to get inside agen.
With my mynd going all diffrent ways stil my feet gone jus that 1 way. Them dogs and me we slyd a long thru dark and girzel by forms and fentses pas all them sleaping in ther doss bags and all them looking out on hy walks be twean Fork Stoan and Widders Dump. No 1 seen us no 1 heard us nothing stoppt us nor it dint seam no time at all til we come sydling that hy groun sholder and nearing on to Widders Dump. My face and hans wet with the girzel my cloes hevvy with the wet my feet slyding in the mud my boots and leggers sogging with it. Smelling the dog pong the rain the mud and the nite. Sylents in my ears only the rain hisper. Far far back behynt my eyes some other place some other time the dry dus rising and the hotness wivvering on the air. No me. Jus barrens and the dry dus blowing. I thot: Who knows? May be Goodparley is the Littl Shyning Man nor he dont know it his self. That thot come to me then sydling that sholder in the rainy dark so I write it down here now.
Looking down to the low groun in the farness I cud see candl glimmers in the gate house at Widders Dump. Where I wer then its where the hy groun sholder goes in and out theres a long deap holler its like a short valley its that place they call Mr Clevvers Roaling Place. They say some times when Mr Clevvers roading thru Inland he gets a larfing fit he cant help his self he jus has to let his self go he roals on the groun there. It wer stil common groun they use to forage there time back. Long befor my time the goats had et it bare and since then there bint nothing only granser rats. They use to say there ben the goast of a batcherd living there hewd come out and show fight when dogs come too close to where he use to play with his cubs when he ben a live.
I dont know what made me go down there may be I wer hoaping for a site of that goast batcherd or may be Mr Clevver wantit me to have a larf. Userly any crowd I wer with wewdve took the upper track the 1 what come down easyer off the sholder by where Belnot Phistd put the crew to timbering. Any how I dint go down that way I gone thru Mr Clevvers Roaling Place. I wer thinking thinking how wer I going to get to Belnot Phist and wishing I wer clevverer that way. Thinking if I wer realy clevver I wunt be busting my head over it oansome Iwd sly in to How Fents and have a word to Fister Crunchman him asd wantit me to stop pontsing for the Ram and do a mans doing. There wernt much wind then jus a littl and freshening it wer fulling and lulling fulling and lulling. Come the nex littl ful and whatd it bring me but Fister Crunchmans very voyce. Its very qwyet and small thru the hisper of the rain its like it ben pickt up ever so delkit by the wind the way you myt lif a keepaways egg from a ledge on a clif and clym down with it only this here wind egg it hatches in my ear and littl qwyet words come out of it. “I dont feal right about it,” says Fister Crunchmans littl voyce.
Nex voyce is Straiter Empy he says, “For his oan good and all.”
Farner Salvage is the nex voyce he says, “Fister you know they wont do nothing moren dock his fraction for the nex 14nt or so. You jus cant go sticking Mincery peopl in bogs when ever you feal like it. Weare living on burrow time as it is. Wunt take hardly nothing at all for them to largen us in the same as Dog Et done Littl Salting. If youre thinking of putting some thing to gether youre wanking man youre roaling a fools pair of dice.”
