[
 {
  "chunk": 243,
  "story": 42,
  "summary": "Malachi, a tall, shabby, simple station hand who has barely left the bush, is the butt of all the boys' jokes and never protests beyond 'Now, none of your pranktical jokes!'",
  "predicament": "A simple, shabby workmate becomes the whole crew's butt, and never protests beyond a mild word or two."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 244,
  "story": 42,
  "summary": "The boys graduate to forged letters from women threatening breach of promise, in the long words he hates; a visiting bricklayer who dabbles in phrenology and seances offers a bigger joke.",
  "predicament": "A crew's jokes on a slow, trusting workmate grow crueller, playing on everything he fears or dislikes."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 245,
  "story": 42,
  "summary": "They get Malachi's bumps read at a seance, then persuade him the bricklayer kills people for their skulls and admires his.",
  "predicament": "The crew persuades a trusting workmate that a visiting stranger means him harm, and watches his fear grow."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 246,
  "story": 42,
  "summary": "On his last night the bricklayer walks into Malachi's hut with a pumpkin in a bag, claims it is another man's skull, and says he has come for Malachi's.",
  "predicament": "A trusting man alone at night is confronted by the very stranger he has been told wants to kill him."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 247,
  "story": 42,
  "summary": "Malachi offers his skeleton after death, then bursts out through the bark wall and runs for the station, while the hidden jokers laugh themselves sick.",
  "predicament": "A frightened man bursts out of the trap the crew set for him, and the jokers laugh at him until they ache."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 248,
  "story": 42,
  "summary": "When a cow charges the squatter's daughter and her city fiance runs for the fence, Malachi stops it barehanded and is gored; dying, he wonders how his mother will manage.",
  "predicament": "The crew's despised butt dies saving someone a smarter man abandoned, and they learn that others depended on him."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 249,
  "story": 42,
  "summary": "He tells them he and his mother were saving to provide for his blind younger brother; the narrator regrets the jokes, and the men take up a collection for the brother.",
  "predicament": "The men who mocked a dead workmate learn he was quietly supporting his family, and try too late to make amends."
 }
]