Chapter 13: A Big Fish Story

An hour before the sun began to peek up over the horizon, I had already rolled out of bed, slipped into my overalls and shirt and hurried outside to dig the worms I'd need in the afternoon. This was about my favorite day of the year, next to Christmas and my birthday. It was Fish Day, as so many of us younger people called it.

All of the boys and more than a few of the girls in our church looked forward to this day for months. Every year on this day all the kids who had their ninth birthdays in the previous twelve months would be baptized into the church and we all got a chance to spend an afternoon fishing.

No one seemed to know how the custom got started exactly and we kids really weren't much concerned about when it began. Every year the annual church picnic was held somewhere on the banks of Cut Across Creek. The nine year olds got baptized and we all got to go fishing as soon as the "dippin' and dunkin'" was done and over with. Pa claimed I'd rather fish than eat. He was almost right.

I took a sharp spade out of the tool shed and hurried over behind the henhouse to dig up thirty or so worms. I never wanted to run short of bait, ever. I placed the worms in a bed of dirt inside a flat old Prince Albert can I found somewhere.

I placed the can in my shirt pocket, then cleaned the shovel off and hung it back handle down on its pegs in the tool shed. I was in a big hurry as I ran to get the cows. I herded them in to the barn and rationed out their grain fast as I could. I already had three milked by the time Pa came out and grabbed the other milk stool. He started on the next cow.

"What's the hurry, Davy? Does a church picnic mean so much to you? I never knew you to be so religious." My cousin Sam grinned at me. She knew the reason I was so anxious. I looked forward to a whole afternoon with a fishing pole in my hand.

Pa sold his wheat crop early enough the previous year to get a fair price. Regardless of the money, the following months had been filled with all too many days of hard work for all of us. That winter had been hard on everything and everybody.

Pa seemed to have the uncanny ability to almost see the future. Instead of banking the proceeds from the grain sale, he took payment in cash and buried most of it in three safe places in and around the house, under the hearth in the fireplace, in a hole in the cellar under the house and in glass jars under the front porch.

As an added precaution he took all the money we already had in the bank and brought it home. After that bank failed, we were solvent while many of our neighbors were bankrupt. This made both my parents sad. However the signs were there for any who would see and not be blinded by greed and ignorance.

We had fifteen milk cows by then and a larger flock of chickens. Pa had started to talk about whether or not he should hire a married couple to help us on the farm. Even with Sam's help there was still just too much to do.

"Sam, I am going to catch the biggest fish ever today," I told her solemnly as we walked slowly toward the house to eat breakfast.

She snorted and I opened the door for her to enter first. "Your black eye has rattled your brains, Davy." She gently touched the area around the eye where the discoloration had already begun to fade away.

Sam said in a low voice, "You're special, Davy, real special." In spite of our age difference she and I had grown close since she came to us and became a part of our family. It seemed I needed a sister and she needed a brother. We both got our needs met.

Pa had installed a sink on our covered back porch and tied into the shower drain. The people who heard of it considered our shower more a novelty than something practical. A bathtub in the kitchen every Saturday morning, or even once a month was plenty good for most folks.

I never realized just how well we lived in comparison to most of our neighbors. Sam washed her hands and face and dried on the big towel then I did the same. We trooped into breakfast and sat across the table from each other. I felt so great right then that I had to grin at her. Sam grinned right back.

"Son, no matter how fast you get the chores done, you are not going to get to drop your line in the water one second sooner. Your ma is frying up six chickens and Samantha has made a big bowl of potato salad. There are Lord only knows how many deviled eggs and at least enough bread to feed an army. It all has to be finished and packed before we move one step away from this place.

"Why?" I started to ask Ma why she was making up so much food and then I shut up. I knew why. There would be families at the church picnic who would not be able to bring much more than just themselves and an appetite. Ma was going to make certain no one went hungry. She would be so quiet about it few would even notice what she was about as she gave food to those who were without.

Pa looked at her and smiled. "I am just now beginning to appreciate the little girl I married such a short time ago. Your ma is a rare woman, Davy." I nodded because I couldn't say anything right then.

Sam and I went to pick the vegetables needed to make a big tossed green salad. Sweet Spanish onions were pulled out of the garden soil, wild greens were taken from the field to the north of the house and tender young dandelion leaves were added to the collection. Our basket was topped with a a few baby green wild tomatoes tomatoes. The lettuce, what little had came up, wasn't ready yet so we used mostly natural greens for our leafy vegetables.

I went outside and fidgeted in my impatience as I waited for the food to be prepared and brought out to the truck. The cats came up to me to be petted. They would have preferred it if Sam had been there instead of me. Where I petted them a little, my cousin Sam really made over them. I teased her about it and call her the "cat girl." She smiled and laughed and kept on petting. I really liked my new cousin Sam. She became more special to me every day.

At last we were ready to go. Ma sat in the middle, Sam sat on the outside and Pa drove. We headed away from the house and toward Cut Across Creek. I perched on the utility box Pa had bolted up front to the bed of the truck. My precious fishing pole and hook, line and sinker were lovingly stowed and I kept my eye on the three big boxes of food to make sure they didn't slip and slide around.

It was eight in the morning on the most beautiful Sunday we were able to enjoy since early spring. Missing were the angry dust clouds usually seen hanging high in the air until they swooped down and buried us in dirt blown up our way from Texas or down our way from Kansas. This dirt filled air caused poultry to literally drown in dust as their fragile lungs were filled with the awful stuff.

I couldn't appreciate the beauty of the day. Deep inside I was anxious to get to Cut Across Creek, wait for the "dippin" to get over with and get busy with the important job of fishing.

Green plants had already begun to grow all along the rutted roads leading from our farm to the Cut Across Creek meeting place. At the place we all met the stream made a sharp bend and the water was a little over three feet deep right there. Grass grew right up to the water's edge.

There was also the old cottonwood tree had seen its share of broken arms caused by daring young boys. There were always a few who egged each other on to climb higher and higher or swing from one limb to another until the inevitable happened. Norman Rockwell would have felt honored to paint such a scene.

The other farm families, some traveling from as far away as thirty miles, began to show up soon after we got there. We were usually among the first to arrive. Some people came in old horse drawn wagons from the nearby farms because they couldn't afford eight cents a gallon for gas.

Others came in Chevrolet trucks, Dodge touring cars, a scattering of Model A and Model B Fords and even a couple of old chain driven Reo trucks and others of various vintages and sizes.

There was even one brand new Chevrolet sedan driven by a local grain buyer who was already making the rounds. He glad-handed the farmers, made over the latest babies and generally acted as phony as the rest of his breed. I knew he would have a couple of bottles of whiskey stashed in his car to share with those so inclined. Pa never got asked to "take a little sip" after the first invitation was turned down. Pa didn't hold with alcohol at church doings.

One family of four even arrived on two old plow horses. The father had a ten-year-old son riding behind him and the mother had their five-year-old daughter riding in front of her, holding on to the mane, while a protective arm held her in place.

During those hard times, people "made do" with what they had and kept on as best they could. In our part of the country, we had no time for fancy airs. It was hard enough work to just get by. Since the wheat glut the previous year, hard times were steadily getting harder. Pa was one of the few who got even close to a decent price for his wheat.

The hymns were all old standards since we didn't have our hymnals with us. "The Old Rugged Cross" was first, "The Church In The Vale" was next and "A Beautiful Life" ended the first three hymns. Brother Moore preached for about an hour and a half in lieu of Sunday school. (We young people fidgeted.) Then the invitation was given for any present to come to Christ or to rededicate his or her life to the Lord.

Then we sang, "Meeting At The River" and the few baptisms were performed. I always wondered what would have happened if, when the preacher asked, "Do you accept Jesus as your savior," the young person being baptized said, "Nope." I was careful to keep this thought to myself. Ma would not have been too pleased to hear me ask a question like that one.

The final prayer seemed so awful long. I echoed "Amen," with the rest of the congregants, young and old, and hurried to get my fishing pole and bait. Pa got a small fire going, using the cut up wood he brought along. He had the deadfall of the locust tree branches from our woodlot. The woodlot was five acres of trees left to grow untended. As we harvested the dead trees and branches neww saplings took the place of the old.

A person needed thick gloves to handle those branches because of the thorns. However, dried locust made good, hot, slow burning fires. As with everything else he did, Pa's fires had to be perfect. He hated sloppiness.

The people came wearing their "Sunday Best" clothes. For some, it meant their ragged overalls were clean. Their wives wore dresses made out of flour sacks not too stained with cow manure and grease and lye splats.

My shiner gave me a distinguished look I thought. A few different people who had heard of the trouble with the Bradleys the previous day mentioned it kidding. I tried to walk like a conquering hero and found it didn't work. I was barefooted and had to watch out for sharp rocks and other dangers to barefeet. It's hard to hold your head up high and try to look noble and still look where you're going at the same time.

I carried my can of worms in my shirt pocket and my pole in my left hand and waved at friends and acquaintances with the other. Wilbur and Norton Barnes dropped in alongside me.

"Goin' fishin'?" Wilbur asked. He was a year older than me, but I was bigger. He stopped growing fast and I didn't.

"Yup," I answered and kept walking.

"Think you'll catch anything?" Norton asked in a doubting tone of voice. He was my age and the perennial pessimist. It was said many times if you gave him a new dollar bill, he'd probably ask, "Will it spend?"

"Heck yes, and I'm goin' to catch some fish, too," I answered him. Then I continued, "And you just keep your trap shut and don't go jinxin' me." Every boy knew how doubtful thoughts could jinx anything. Many a fight had started over whether one boy jinxed another with negative thoughts or words.

We were all barefoot, so we kept a wary eye out for sharp stones and other objects ready to penetrate our toughened and well-callused feet if we weren't careful. Almost without thought, we would step around and over suspect objects with an alert wariness born of long experience and past bad gashes or just stubbed toes.

As soon as we got down to the riverbank, I set down the pole and extracted a nice, big, blood red night crawler and carefully placed it on the hook so it was secure and could still move the way a "free" worm would. There was quite an art to baiting a hook.

All boys were self-proclaimed "experts" on the art of hook baiting. My big, fat, juicy blood red specimen was wriggling furiously as it tried to escape the hook that pierced it. It looked just right.

I dropped the hook in the water and almost immediately got a bite. So much for Norton's "jinxing me." This one eyed medium sized flat as a pancake fish made great eating; there was just so little of him, though. The worm had just gotten upgraded from "bait" to "lucky worm." Since he still showed signs of life, I dropped him and the attendant hook back in the water and waited.

I pulled my "Okie stringer" out of a hip pocket and used it to secure my catch before dropping him back in the water to stay fresh and alive. An Okie stringer is nothing more than two looped pieces of ten-gage or heavier wire bent to resemble a longhand written letter e, or even two short sticks.