Well, we missed Uncle Benny from Oak Bluff a day or two. When I came to ask questions, I found he’d gone on a long prowl and was over on the Withlacoochie River camping with some oyster fishermen. I didn’t think much about it, because he was liable to stay off that-a-way. But time rocked on and he didn’t show up. I dropped by his house to ask the Old Hen about him. She didn’t know a blessed thing.

She said, “Ain’t it God’s mercy we’ve got no young uns? The pore things would be as good as fatherless.”

And then a few days later Doc came driving up to the garage. He got out and blew his nose and we could see his eyes were red.

He said, “Ain’t it awful! I can’t hardly bear to think about it.”

Will said, “Doc, if you know bad news, you must be carrying it. Ain’t nothing sorrowful I know of, except the Prohi’s have found Philbin’s still.”

Doc said, “Don’t talk about such little accidents at a time like this. You don’t mean you ain’t heerd about Benny?”

The bunch was there and they all perked up, interested. They knowed if it was Uncle Benny, they could expect ’most any news.

I said, “We ain’t heerd a word since he went off to the west coast.”

“You ain’t heerd about him going crazy?”

I said, “Doc, you mean being crazy. He’s always been that-a-way.”

“I mean being crazy and going crazy, Pore ol’ Benny Mathers has gone really cold-out crazy.”

Well, we all just looked at him and we looked at one another. And it came over the whole bunch of us that we weren’t surprised. A nigger setting by the free air hose said, “Do, Jesus!” and eased away to tell the others.

Doc blew his nose and wiped his eyes and he said, “I’m sure we all forgive the pore ol’ feller all the things he done. He wasn’t responsible. I feel mighty bad, to think the hard way I’ve often spoke to him.”

Will asked, “How come it to finally happen?”

Doc said, “He’d been up to some foolishness all night, raring through some of them Gulf coast flat-woods. Him and the fellers he was camping with was setting on the steps of the camp-house after breakfast. All of a sudden Uncle Benny goes to whistling, loud and shrill like a jay-bird. Then he says, ‘I’m Sampson,’ and he begun to tear down the camp-house.”

Will asked, “What’d they do with him?”

Doc said, “You really ain’t heerd? I declare, I can’t believe the news has come so slow. They had a terrible time holding him and tying him. They got in the doctors and the sheriff and they takened pore ol’ Uncle Benny to the lunatic asylum at Chattahoochie.”

Doc wiped his eyes and we all begun to sniffle and our eyes to burn. I declare, it was just as if Uncle Benny Mathers had died on us.