Joey (9) and his sister Mary Alice (7) have been sent from Chicago to visit their Grandma Dowdel in a �hick town� in rural Illinois. Although Grandma keeps to herself, the children share with her the news they manage to pick up in the Coffee Pot Caf� uptown. One afternoon they carry home the tale that a "suspicious type" had come off the train in citified clothes. He was asking around about the recent demise of a local character, Shotgun Cheatham, and he was taking notes.
Cast of Characters
Narrator 1 (older Joey)
Narrator 2 (older Mary Alice)
Grandma Dowdell
Joey
Mary Alice
Reporter
Mrs. Weidenbach
Mrs. Wilcox
Narrator 1: You wouldn�t think we�d have to leave Chicago to see a dead body.
Narrator 2: No, we had to travel all the way down to our Grandma Dowdel�s before we ever set eyes on a corpse.
Mary Alice: Grandma, who was Shotgun Cheatham?
Grandma: He was just an old reprobate who lived poor and died broke. Nobody went near him because he smelled like a polecat. He lived in a chicken coop, and now they�ll have to burn it down.
Joey: Down at the Coffee Pot they say Shotgun rode with the James boys.
Grandma: Which James boys?
Joey: Jesse James, and Frank.
Grandma: They wouldn�t have had him. Anyhow, them Jameses was Missouri people.
Mary Alice: They were telling the reporter Shotgun killed a man and went to the penitentiary.
Grandma: Several around here done that, though I don�t recall him being out of town any length of time. Who�s doing all this talking?
Mary Alice: A real old, humped-over lady with buck teeth.
Grandma: Cross-eyed? That�d be Effie Wilcox. You think she�s ugly now, you should have seen her as a girl. And she�d talk you to death. Her tongue�s attached in the middle and flaps at both ends.
Joey: They said he�d notched his gun in six places. They said the notches were either for banks he�d robbed or for sheriffs he�d shot.
Grandma: Was that Effie again? Never trust an ugly woman. She�s got a grudge against the world.
Narrator 1: This from Grandma, who was no oil painting herself.
Grandma: I�ll tell you how Shotgun got his name. He wasn�t but about ten years old, and he wanted to go out and shoot quail with a bunch of older boys. He couldn�t hit a barn wall from the inside, and he had a sty in one eye. They were out there in a pasture without a quail in sight, but Shotgun got all excited being with the big boys. He squeezed off a round and killed a cow. That�s how he got the name, and it stuck to him like flypaper. Any girl in town could have outshoot him, including me.
Narrator 1: Grandma kept a twelve-gauge double-barreled Winchester Model 21 behind the woodbox.
Grandma: And I wasn�t no Annie Oakley myself, except with squirrels.
Narrator 1: A stranger was on the porch, and it turned out to be the reporter who had been asking questions around town about Gunshot.
Grandma: What�s your business?
Reporter: Ma�am, I�m making inquiries about the late Shotgun Cheatham.
Narrator 2: The reporter shuffled his feet, wanting to get one of them in the door.
Grandma: Who sent you to me?
Reporter: I�m going door-to-door, ma�am. You know how you ladies love to talk. Bless your hearts, you�d all talk the hind leg off a mule.
Grandma: You�re a newspaper reporter? What they been telling you?
Reporter: Looks like I got a good story by the tail. �Last of the Old Owlhoot Gunslingers Goes to a Pauper�s Grave.� That kind of angle. Ma�am, I wonder if you could help me flesh out the story some.
Grandma: Well, I got flesh to spare. Who�s been talking to you?
Reporter: It was mainly an elderly lady �
Grandma: Ugly as sin, calls herself Wilcox? She�s been in the state hospital for the insane until just here lately, but as a reporter I guess you nosed that out.
Narrator 1: The reporter�s eyes widened.
Grandma: They tell you how Shotgun come by his name?
Reporter: Opinions seem to vary, ma�am.
Grandma: Ah well, fame is fleeting. He got it in the Civil War. He was with U.S. Grant when Vicksburg fell. That�s where he got his name. Grant give it to him, in fact.
Narrator 1: We knew kids lie all the time, but Grandma was no kid, and she could tell some whoppers.
Grandma: He was always a crack shot. Come home from the war with a line of medals bigger than his chest.
Reporter: And yet he died penniless.
Grandma: Oh well, he�d sold off them medals and give the money to war widows and orphans.
Narrator 2: A change crossed the reporter�s narrow face.
Narrator 1: Shotgun had gone from a kill-crazy gunslinger to war-hero marksman. Philanthropist, even.
Reporter: And he never married?
Grandma: Never did. He broke Effie Wilcox�s heart. She�s bitter still, as you see.
Reporter: And now he goes to a pauper�s grave with none to mark his passing.
Grandma: They tell you that? They�re pulling your leg, sonny. You drop by the Coffee Pot and tell them you heard that Shotgun�s being buried from my house with full honors. He�ll spend his last night above ground in my front room, and you�re invited.
Narrator 2: The reporter backed down the porch stairs, staggering under all his new material.
Reporter: Much obliged ma�am.
Grandma: Happy to help.
Narrator 1: As soon as the reporter was gone, Grandma turned on us.
Grandma: Now I�ve got to change my shoes and walk all the way up to the lumberyard in this heat.
Narrator 1: By nightfall a green pine coffin stood on two sawhorses in the front room. A heavy gauze hung from the open lid to veil Shotgun, because he hadn�t been exactly fresh when they discovered his body. Grandma had flung open every window, but there was a peculiar smell in the room..
Narrator 2: A parade of people came to pay their respects. Mrs. L. J. Weidenbach, the banker�s wife, came leading her father, an ancient codger in full Civil War Union blue.
Mrs. Weidenbach: We are here to pay our respects at this sad time. When I told Daddy that Shotgun had been decorated by U. S. Grant and wounded three times at Bull Run, it brought it all back to him, and we had to come.
Narrator 1: Then who appeared at the front door but Mrs. Effie Wilcox, in a hat.
Mrs. Wilcox: Mrs. Dowdel, I�ve come to set with you overnight and see our brave old soldier through his Last Watch.
Narrator 2: Grandma waved Mrs. Wilcox inside, and in she came, her eyes all over the place. She made for the coffin and stared at the blank white gauze.
Mrs. Wilcox: Don�t he look natural?
Narrator 2: Mrs. Wilcox drew up a chair next to the reporter.
Mrs. Wilcox: Warm, ain�t it?
Narrator 1: The hours passed, and as midnight drew on, we began to doze. Then there was a sound - somewhere between a rustle and a whisper - and the gauze hanging down over the open coffin rippled as if a hand had passed across it from the other side.
Mrs. Wilcox: Naw! (strangling sounds) Naw!
Reporter: Sweet mother of �
Grandma: Whoa, Shotgun! You�ve had your time, boy. You don�t get no more!
Narrator 2: Grandma galloped out of the room and came back swinging the twelve-gauge Winchester.
Narrator 1: She took aim at the gauze that draped the yawning coffin, then she squeezed off a round.
Grandma: Rest in peace, you old �
Narrator 2: When she let fly with the other barrel the reporter came out of the chair, and went out a side window, headfirst.
Mrs. Wilcox: The dead is walking, and Mrs. Dowdel�s gunning for me!
Narrator 1: Mrs. Wilcox cut and run out the door and into the night.
Narrator 2: The white gauze was black rags now, and Grandma had blown the lid clear off the coffin.
Grandma: Time you kids was in bed.
Narrator 2: Apart from Grandma herself, I was the only one who�d seen her big old snaggletoothed tomcat streak out of the coffin and over the windowsill when she let fire.
Narrator 1: The story that grew out of that night certainly fleshed out Grandma�s reputation, and gave people new reason to leave her in peace.
School of Library and Information Studies
TEXAS WOMAN'S UNIVERSITY