I don't care to speak about what happened. Three House boys and their father had a part in it, maybe they will say why and maybe not. Ted took no part. He was one of the few could hold their head high in the long years after, cause he didn't have no cause to feel ashamed. Course the House boys never felt shame neither, which might been why we had hard feelings in our family.
The twenty-fifth, Sheriff Frank Tippins finally showed up with the Monroe sheriff, Clement Jaycox, brought down by Cap'n Collier on the Falcon. This was a week after the hurricane, and Chokoloskee was still cleaning up. The men told the sheriff he had come too late, so they was obliged to take the law in their own hands. Others blamed the death of Mister Watson on his late arrival.
Some men went with the law into the rivers on a hunt for Cox. Never found hide nor hair of him, of course. They took aboard a large cargo of Mister Watson's syrup, and they come on back.
Sheriff Tippins issued a summons to the men who took part in the death of E.J. Watson. He had that authority cause in 1910 Chokoloskee was still Lee County, and Chokoloskee is where E.J. Watson died. The men wanted the postmaster to go with 'em to Fort Myers and vouch for their upstanding characters, which he did. By that time there was a few complaining that the only one didn't have to go was the one who killed him-didn't count, I guess.
I asked my brother Bill about it, he just shook his head. Well, Bill, I says, what in the name of goodness does that darn old head-shake tell me, yes or no? And Bill said, Mamie, there is no way to explain. It ain't a matter of a yes or no, so just forget about it.
We done our best to forget about that killing, but no one forgot that hurricane, not around here. Everything got all tore up, salt-soaked, and rotting, everything mildewed, trees down everywhere, and everlasting mud. It seemed like our world was covered in muck and would not come clean again. Mullet cast up by that storm was a foot deep on the beach. Poor Ted raked out most of our drowned chickens the first week, but putrefaction rose up through those loose boards a month or more before he could get the store put back together and take the time to crawl back under there, bury the last of 'em.
Poor Edna was very grateful we had took her in but the smell of corruption was something terrible. Mama called it the stink of Satan's sulphur coming up from Hell. Might of had a stuffed-up nose or something. Anyway, she upset Edna, who got that chicken stink confused with everything, said she feared that stench would fill her nostrils till her dying day.
CHOKOLOSKEE, OCTOBER 27, 1910. We are still having trouble Here. On the 24th Mr. E.J. Watson came up from his place in his launch, and came to the shore and had some words with some of the folks. There was a little misunderstanding, and Mr. Watson pulled his gun and tried to fire on some of our neighbors. His gun failed fire, and he lost the deal, and was shot and instantly killed. His body was taken out to Rabbit Key and buried on the 25th. I don't know of any other grave out there. A lot of men went down to Mr. Watson's place on the next day to hunt one Leslie Cox that Mr. Watson said he had killed when he was there, but they did not find him.
FORT MYERS, OCTOBER 27, 1910. Thomas A. Edison, the famous electrician, telegraphed on Tuesday to know the depth of the water on the Caloosahatchee-
Mrs. Watson and children arrive from down coast today…