1906. The story begins: Those who had known him longest recalled just when and how the name of Gosh darn Davis attached itself to him, and attach it did to stick like a burr. In the little hamlet where he had dwelt for the past fifty years he was always spoken of by that name. In the village a few miles beyond, where he went almost daily to do his tradin', and even in the Hub, to which he drove each alternate Saturday with his farm produce he was spoken of by this uneuphonious title.