BILLYWITCH (1932)

My name is William Millhouse. I am not a remarkable or interesting man, but these are my memories. It is late in the day now, and I have decided to set them down, not because I believe them to be a record of a great or interesting life but because if I don’t, being survived by no living relative, I will take them with me to the grave. Maybe that is not such a great tragedy but within my life is the life of a place too, and I feel great alteration is afoot, and some of that life may soon be frittered and blown on the wind. There will be others who could tell it better and wiser than me, but I am not quite as simple a man as some have taken me for, and this is my story, or at least the parts of it I remember most clearly. In the telling, I do my best, with the knowledge that I might make mistakes and be victim to tricks of the mind, as all who have tried to recall and record the times they have lived through surely have been.