Straight out of my heart. Say, when I go I lay off to kiss you good night tonight and no harm done and ne’er a thing bound by it. That’s my aim when I go away. Her cheek is like some bloomen red rose. I aim to get a camera right off and then I’ll take your picture first thing. I owned a first-rate camera before now. I used to take tintypes and cabinets, both. I’ll tell you how I lost my camera; that’s a story to please you. I was away down towards the Big Fork and I took up with a machine agent, but he never would let on he knowed me when he came to a house. “You go here whilst I go there,” he’d whisper to me. He was afraid his trade would get ruined if he let on he went with a picture-taker, and I was afraid vicy versy, but we’d meet around the turn of the road and say, “Any good?” He’d let old J.B. ride along for miles in his sewen machine wagon. He had a fancy to me, I see that. Well, one time we came to a ford, as we supposed, and we drove out and by the time we knew what was what the water was up in the wagon bed and the old horse off his feet. Them machines was so heavy they made the wagon want to stay down and that’s how I lost my camera. I never laid eyes on that machine agent again after I see him climb up on the opposite bank, but I heard it said that when the water subsided, flood water, it was, he got his machines off a sand bar. That’s how I lost my camera. Her cheek is like some bloomen red rose. And the horse, I’d hate to name what came to the horse, a big old roan. It was them heavy machines caused it and the old roan couldn’t seem to kick clear of the harness. Her cheek is like some bloomen red rose. I couldn’t name what happened to him. It’s not decent to name. Anyway that-there horse drowned as dead as a door nail, neck stretched out and swelled up as big as a wagon wheel around the middle. Flood water, it was. Her cheek is like some bloomen red rose. I’ll sing one more piece called “Just as the Sun Went Down”. You ought to hear the tenor on that. I got to sing the treble because I got nobody to chord in, but sometime I’ll show you how the tenor goes.’ He hitched his chair nearer and a little spasm passed over his shoulders. Some great star hung in the high point of the sky and the moon shone. Far away a lonely dog barked. Lonely crickets were crying in the grass beside the stones of the spring and the desolate voices of frogs cried. It seemed that a long while had passed as the moments moved from desolation to desolation.