Context:

The subject is a white man from Dallas, Texas. We were talking about his family and his upbringing in Texas when he told me this story. Scouting groups are full of folklore and this is a pretty common story I’ve heard from others.

Piece:

“My dad did it, cause he was the cub scout leader for my cub scout troop. So when we’d go on camping trips he would always tell stories. He was great at telling like Native American stories. The best one is Hatchetman. Hatchetman was a thing he’d brought up every year and told the story every year, it was alway, it was a scary story. It was about a scouting troop that went to camp at a camp much like this one. And they would be doing thing and it would be, and this mysterious man in a rain jacket with the hood commed up [pronounced like come-’d, I think he means came as in his hood was pulled up] with only one hand, his other hand was a hatchet. [The next part, Jackson cresendoes his voice to a climax] He’d slowly sneak through as they were in the middle of a campfire all telling stories with each other he’d sneak up behind them and stab ‘em with the hatchet. It was always, when we were little it was always a joke, but then my last year there to uh become a boy scout, he was leaving as cub master, it was the big last campout. He told Hatchetman story and he had his friend, who was one of the dads, dress up as Hatchetman as he was telling the story. He was like “as they sat around the campfire, all telling a story, their eyes fixed up front, Hatchetman was creeping up behind” and like the guy was creaching up behind with the hatchet and he scared all of us so much. One of the kids pooped his pants.”