Why Wheeler Bryant Had A Black Ring Around His Little Finger

This story was told to me (Wheeler Bryant's granddaughter) by the child of one of his half-sisters. My great grandfather, Duncan L. Bryant, had two families: several children by his first wife, Mary Hammond, and three children by his second wife, my great grandmother Frances Wheeler. He built two houses across the road from each other. The older children of the deceased Mary in one; he, Frances, and children (including Wheeler) in the other, with a great deal of traveling back and forth.

It seems that when my Grandfather Wheeler Bryant was a youngster, one day he was outside playing with a little hachet, and he accidentally chopped off the first digit of his little finger, left I believe. He and his playmates were closer to his half-siblings' home so they ran there with digit in tow. One of his half sisters administered to him. She applied soot from the fireplace, placed the digit back in its original place, and wrapped the whole thing with spider webs. It stayed that way until the webs fell off and, by then, the digit was re-attached. However, from that day until his death (in 1965), he had a thin black ring around his finger between the first and second digit of that finger, the site of the re-attachment. However, Granddaddy always wore a signet ring on that finger, so I never noticed the "black  ring" around his finger. Just Remember: I don't make these things up; I just report them!