DANNY'S OWN STORY BY DON MARQUIS TO MY ... - Pink Monkey

I seen that pile moving and churning. Then I
made a big mistake myself. I kicked a feller in
the stomach, and another feller caught my leg,
and down I went. Fur a half a minute I never
knowed nothing. And when I come to I was all
mashed about the face, and two fellers was sitting
on me.
The crowd was tying Doctor Kirby to that
parachute. They straddled legs over the parachute
bar, and tied his feet below it. He was still fighting,
but they was too many fur him. They left
his arms untied, but they held 'em, and then--
Then they cut her loose. She went up like she
was shot from a gun, and as she did Doctor Kirby
took a grip on a feller's arm that hadn't let loose
quick enough and lifted him plumb off'n the ground.
He slewed around on the trapeze bar with the
feller's weight, and slipped head downward. And
as he slipped he give that feller a swing and let
loose of him, and then ketched himself by the
crook of one knee. The feller turned over twicet
in the air and landed in a little crumpled-up pile
on the ground, and never made a sound.
The fellers that had holt of me forgot me and
stood up, and I stood up too, and looked. The
balloon was rising fast. Doctor Kirby was trying
to pull himself up to the trapeze bar, twisting and
squirming and having a hard time of it, and shooting
higher every second. I reckoned he couldn't
fall complete, fur where his feet was tied would
likely hold even if his knee come straight--but
he would die mebby with his head filling up with
blood. But finally he made a squirm and raised
himself a lot and grabbed the rope at one side of
the bar. And then he reached and got the rope
on the other side, and set straddle of her. And
jest as he done that the wind ketched the balloon
good and hard, and she turned out toward Lake
Erie. It was too late fur him to pull the rope
that sets the parachute loose then, and drop onto
the land.