True Grit: Sections 1–2

People do not give it credence that a fourteen-year-old girl could leave home and go off in the wintertime to avenge her father’s blood but it did not seem so strange then, although I will say it did not happen every day.

He turned up one day hungry and riding a gray horse that had a filthy blanket on his back and a rope halter instead of a bridle.

He turned up one day hungry and riding a gray horse that had a filthy blanket on his back and a rope halter instead of a bridle.

He had heard that a stock trader there named Colonel Stonehill had bought a large parcel of cow ponies from Texas drovers on their way to Kansas and was now stuck with them.

If Papa had a failing it was his kindly disposition.

Yarnell was a good man, thrifty and industrious, and he later became a prosperous house painter in Memphis, Tennessee.

Yarnell was a good man, thrifty and industrious, and he later became a prosperous house painter in Memphis, Tennessee.

Yarnell was a good man, thrifty and industrious, and he later became a prosperous house painter in Memphis, Tennessee.

I remember once I rode a mean goat through a plum thicket on a dare.

He was a handsome sight and in my memory’s eye I can still see him mounted up there on Judy in his brown woolen coat and black Sunday hat and the both of them, man and beast, blowing little clouds of steam on that frosty morn. He might have been a gallant knight of old.

Like Martha I have always been agitated and troubled by the cares of the day but my mother had a serene and loving heart.

That night Tom Chaney went to a barroom and got into a game of cards with some “riffraff" like himself and lost his wages.

There was no more provocation than that and I tell it as it was told to me by the high sheriff of Sebastian County.

Some people might say, well, what business was it of Frank Ross to meddle?

There were no seats to be had on the coaches. The reason for this was that there was to be a triple hanging at the Federal Courthouse in Fort Smith and people from as far away as east Texas and north Louisiana were going up to see it. It was like an excursion trip.

We went to the Monarch boardinghouse but there was no one there except a poor old woman with cataracts on her eyes.

The Federal Courthouse was up by the river on a little rise and the big gallows was hard beside it.

A noisy boy was going through the crowd selling parched peanuts and fudge.

When we got there the preliminaries were just about over.

A marshal read the sentences but his voice was low and we could not make out what he was saying. We pushed up closer.

If you are like me you probably think of Indians as heathens.

He was never baptized and never even heard of a catechism and yet Christ himself promised him a place in heaven.

I don’t know what is to become of them. I hope and pray that people will not slight them and compel them to go into low company on account of the disgrace I have brought them.

You see what I have come to because of drink. I killed my best friend in a trifling quarrel over a pocketknife.

With no more ado Maledon sprung the trap and the hinged doors fell open in the middle and the three killers dropped to judgment with a bang.

That was the bad part and many in the crowd turned in revulsion and left in some haste, and we were among them.

Perhaps you can imagine how painful it was for us to go directly from that appalling scene to the undertaker’s where my father lay dead.

The body was wrapped in a white shroud.

Tom Chaney would pay for this! I would not rest easy until that Louisiana cur was roasting and screaming in hell!

We went to the man’s office and I signed some coroner’s papers. The charge for the coffin and the embalming was something over sixty dollars. The shipping charge to Dardanelle was $9.50.

We went to the man’s office and I signed some coroner’s papers. The charge for the coffin and the embalming was something over sixty dollars. The shipping charge to Dardanelle was $9.50.

I said, “Well, we will not haggle with him.”

The high sheriff was friendly and he gave me the full particulars on the shooting, but I was disappointed to learn how little had been done toward the apprehension of Tom Chaney.

I reckon William Waters is the best tracker.

She told about the event in detail and asked me impertinent questions about my family.

I did not wish to discuss the thing with idly curious strangers, no matter how well intentioned they might be.

I sat at one corner of the table between her and a tall, long-backed man with a doorknob head and a mouthful of prominent teeth.

The boarders dozed and read newspapers and talked about the hanging and the drummer told yellow fever jokes.

She must have seen the dismay on my face for she added, “It will be all right. Grandma Turner will not mind. She is used to doubling up. She will not even know you are there, sweet.”

This happened once more later in the night and I got up, my feet freezing, and arranged Papa’s blankets and slicker over me as makeshift covers.