The small wharf faced out upon a little cove; a very large cypress grew in the water a few feet in front of it, framing a view over about a quarter of the Pond, the sunny water and the distant, close-growing rank of trees on the opposite shore. This small view was somehow a friendly one, an introduction to the rest of the Pond which opened up without a house or a sign of man’s handiwork when you got into a boat and left the cove. There was a large, half-sunken wooden box with wire sides on one side of the wharf to keep fish alive in until whoever caught them was ready to take them home, and two rowboats and a bateau, flat-bottomed and double-ended, were tied up on the other side.
Joey usually paused on the wharf and looked out from it for a moment or two, feeling that he was meeting the Pond again and getting ready for the pleasures of being upon it, but he didn’t do it this time. The big bass was in his mind, hurrying him. He unwrapped the old trap chain hooked to a nail that kept the bateau from drifting away and jumped into the stern. Bud got into the bow, and they shoved off and headed out to cross the Pond.
“Faster!” Bud said, in a fever of anxiety. “Faster! He’ll be gone.”
Neither of them even looked up the Pond.
“Faster!” Bud said again. “Go on.”
Joey didn’t reply; he didn’t have the breath for it. He dug the paddle into the water, and the bateau skimmed along until they got to within fifty yards of the group of cypresses where the bass had jumped. Joey stopped paddling and the bateau coasted along, losing way; then Joey began paddling again, very carefully, and they sneaked up on the spot. Bud raised his rod and brought it forward. He was too anxious; the reel ran over, and he had a backlash. The line snarled and the plug swung in a short wild arc and smacked the water beside the boat.
“Goddamn!” Bud said. He sat down and began frantically to strip off line in order to untangle the bird’s nest caused by the backlash, shaking with anxiety and frustration, tangling it more.
“Give it to me,” Joey said, beginning to shake himself. “You’re messing it up. Give it to me, damn it!”
He couldn’t sit still; he half rose and started for the bow, and the bateau began to rock. He sat down quickly again, almost frantic himself with the urge to get at the reel and fix everything; he’d never seen such a butter fingered performance as Bud was putting on. “Give it to me!” he shouted. “Let me have it, you clumsy ox!”
Bud looked up. “Back up!” he snarled. “Back up! You’ve let us get too far; we’ll scare him!”
Joey looked around and saw that Bud was right. He reached for the paddle, but it wasn’t there. In his excitement he had let it slide into the water, and it floated mockingly twenty yards away.
“Back up!” Bud snarled again, not looking up. Joey didn’t say anything. “Back up, will you?” Bud said, and raised his head. “What are you waiting there for? Back up!”
“Bud,” Joey said.
“Yeah, yeah.”
“The paddle’s out there.”
Bud put the rod down and stared. Joey pointed.
“Oh, damn!” Bud said in complete disgust. “Now you have messed it up. How are we going to get it?”
“We’ll have to paddle with our hands.”
“Good Christmas! And you calling people clumsy oxes.”
“You started it,” Joey said, stung. “Getting a backlash when I put you in the exact place. The first cast.”
“I guess you got paralyzed and just dropped the paddle, huh? You sick or something? You got a temperature? You see a man get a perfectly natural backlash and can’t—”
“Oh, shut up!” Joey shouted.
They sat and glared at one another from opposite ends of the bateau and presently, seeing that they weren’t getting anywhere, made peace by silent mutual consent. They rolled up their sleeves and paddled with their hands. It was a long and tiresome process, and wouldn’t have worked if there had been any wind. They finally reached the paddle, and Joey picked it out of the water.
“You reckon you better tie it to you?” Bud asked.
“You reckon it’s my turn to fish? You sure messed that up. You better get that backlash fixed before we move from here. We’ll have to go somewhere else; we’ll never catch him now.”
“I’ll fix it,” Bud said. “But I get to fish until I catch one.”
Joey could hardly quarrel with that, after having lost the paddle. “Okay,” he said. “We’ll go around the shore and try him again on the way back.”
Bud got the backlash fixed finally, and Joey rowed back across the pond and started to paddle slowly along fifteen or twenty yards offshore while Bud dropped the plug along the shoreline and reeled it in. They had both practiced their bait casting for long hours in their backyards and were surprisingly accurate; it was a pretty thing to see the plug drop into the center of the little three-foot openings between the cypress butts and start wiggling its way back toward the boat.
There was almost a dreamlike quality about this kind of fishing, gliding slowly and silently over the dark cedar water with only an occasional dip of the paddle. The paddler watched the fisherman and the shore, where an infrequent squirrel was surprised as it foraged on the ground or a bird flashed into view and out of it again; the woods were still, the cypresses brooded almost over their heads, and the fisherman cast and reeled in, concentrating on his work, with a slow and steady rhythm. Neither of them spoke. A series of water drops fell from the paddle as it was retrieved from a leisurely stroke, the plug splashed when it hit the water, and there was no other sound except the distant rattle of a kingfisher as it flew from tree to tree far ahead of the bateau.
Presently the quiet was broken when a bass darted out from shore, hit the plug, and jumped into the air when it felt the hook. The broken water flashed in the sun, the bass gleamed as it curved, shaking its head, back into the water again, and Bud played it until it gave up and was netted and put into the live box amidships. They both moved in to admire it as it sulked in the live box, a good dark fish of two pounds or so, and then they changed places.
Joey didn’t get a strike until they came to the first long cove where a great dead oak lay half submerged and partially blocked the cove’s entrance. The bass came out from under the sunken trunk; he was a big one, Joey had gone a little dreamy, and the strike was so hard that it took the handle of the reel out of Joey’s fingers. The reel spun backwards, and the fish ran down into the tree and tangled the line among the sunken branches and got away.
“Ah!” Joey said. He tried to reel in and couldn’t. “I’m tangled up,” he said in disgust.
“Why didn’t you hang on to him, for gosh sakes?” Bud demanded, and swung the bateau. They each took hold of a branch and Bud poked about with the paddle. They had to roll up their sleeves again and feel about under water until the line was free again. It took a long time, a deal of amateur profanity, and a soaking to the shoulders for both of them; by the time the plug was free the sun had sunk so low that they were in shadow and chilly. They looked up the cove, which was lined all around the shore with trees, and decided to go back and try the fish they had seen from the road again before they quit.
“I get to catch him,” Bud said, as they started across the Pond.
“You caught one. It’s my turn.”
“You’d had one if you hadn’t gone to sleep. Anyhow, I venched on him.”
It was a problem. He had venched on him, and even if he’d had a backlash Joey had lost the paddle. Joey realized that he didn’t have much of a case, but he tried anyhow. “If you hadn’t had the backlash—”
“I venched on him.”
“Okay, gosh hang it. Catch him, then. Only, I get to fish until we get there.”
“Okay,” Bud said, and they went across the lake. Joey worked the shore until they neared the cypresses without raising a fish, and they changed places in the bateau. They crept up to the place, scarcely breathing, and Bud cast his plug. They both stared in fascination as it returned through the water. Nothing happened. Bud tried several ti
mes more, bracketing the spot where the monster had appeared, but the monster refused to be drawn out. Finally they gave him up for that day, and headed for the wharf, sliding across the lengthening shadows on the water, shivering a little in the gathering evening chill, but at peace with one another now and content.
CHAPTER TWO
They caught the fish in the net and dumped it in the live box by the dock, hooked the bateau’s chain on the nail, and went up the hill. It was twilight by this time and they were hungry; they were both thinking of Mr. Ben again, but didn’t mention him to one another. They had had a good afternoon and were looking forward to the warmth of the house and food, and somehow the old man didn’t seem quite so dubious any more.
When they got to the clearing at the top of the hill there was the smell of woodsmoke in the air and they could see a light in the kitchen. They reached the back porch, closed ranks, climbed the back steps, and went in. The kitchen was warm; there was a roaring wood fire in the stove, a kerosene lamp was burning on the table, and Mr. Ben was just dumping an armload of wood into the woodbox. He heard them come in and straightened up and turned around. He was in his late sixties, lean, of medium height, and a little bent and lantern-jawed; his hands were gnarled and slightly misshapen by “the rheumatism”; he trapped muskrats in the winter and this kept his hands in cold water a good deal, but he had a good, friendly face and was still lively enough. He had about three days’ growth of beard, upon which the lamplight cast a silvery sheen.
They spoke together. “Hi, Mr. Ben.”
He made what once might have been a courtly bow. “Gentlemen,” he said, “good evening. When I saw the car and you weren’t here, I thought the alligators might have made off with you.”
The boys looked at one another. “Alligators?” Bud said. “There aren’t really alligators, are there, Mr. Ben?”
“Well, I didn’t see any today, but it was a little cool.”
“I never saw an alligator when I was here with my father,” Joey said, looking at Bud. “When it was warmer.”
“They’re shy,” Mr. Ben said, “with grown people. It’s different with boys. Yes, sir, Chickahominy River alligators are mighty careful.”
The boys looked at one another again, and Bud said, “We better bring the things in.”
“I reckon we better,” Joey said. “Excuse us, Mr. Ben.”
When they got to the Model T, Bud hissed, “We better be careful. Anybody talks about alligators … What’s he trying to give us? You think he’s making fun of us, or what?”
“He never tried to make fun of me before.”
“Maybe he was always too busy talking to your father … or something. You smell anything?”
“Smell anything? Smell what?”
“Whisky or anything.”
Joey stared at him. A fair amount of the time Joey was a dreamy boy; he was a great reader, and some of the phrases he encountered conjured up pictures in his mind that dulled his ears to the exterior world and turned his eyes inward for a while. He would get out of this world and into one of his own, but except when this fit was on him he had surprisingly practical moments. He had a better sense of reality than Bud, who was inclined to embroider a situation and then be caught in the embroidery, letting his imagination run away with him. “Shucks,” Joey said. “I think you’re making too much of it. He’s not going to do anything silly. He’s not going to do anything. He likes it here. He hasn’t anyplace else to go, anyhow.”
“You reckon?” Bud asked. “What’s he talking about alligators for, then?”
“I think he’s trying to kid us,” Joey said. “You thought so yourself a minute ago.”
“I … okay. Maybe he’s trying to kid us, but I’m going to watch him just the same.”
“Okay,” Joey said, and picked up as much as he could carry and took it into the house.
Bud followed him in with another load. Besides the things they had bought at the store, they had brought two cakes baked by their mothers, two cooked chickens, four loaves of home-baked bread, half a dozen cans of soup, and three jars of homemade raspberry jam. All of these things were piled on the kitchen table and then stowed in the kitchen cabinet. Mr. Ben’s eyes lighted up at the sight of all this plunder; living alone, he seldom cooked very much except eggs and cornbread, side meat and a fish once in a while.
The boys then brought in their clothes and gear. Joey lit another lamp, and as the guns always went into the living room and stood in corners, they took their guns in there and stood them up. The living room was rectangular; it had a sheet-iron wood stove with a fire in it against one wall and a table covered with blue-figured oilcloth that was used to eat upon on the other wall. The room had been plastered and painted a long time ago and it was hard to say what color it was any more; there was a window in each short wall, one of them giving out on the back porch and the other looking out over the fields in the front. The front window had a somewhat sagging couch in front of it; most of the furniture had been left by the farmer owner and had been supplemented by old, worn-out things that Joey’s father had sent down.
Joey left the lamp on the table until they got their clothes, and then carried it into the bedroom. There was no stove in there, and the room with a big brass double bed and an old bureau and several chairs in it had a graveyard chill. They didn’t stay there long. They went back to the kitchen, leaving the lamp in the living room again, and stood watching Mr. Ben put more wood into the stove.
“What will we eat?” Bud asked. “Chicken?”
“Chicken and beans,” Joey said. “Would you like chicken and beans, Mr. Ben?”
“I would indeed,” Mr. Ben said. “Perhaps a little soup first? You have soup, don’t you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You both got a little chilled, and soup warms the cockles of the heart.”
“The cockles of the heart?” Joey repeated. He liked the phrase; he could see in his mind’s eye the cockles of the heart, whatever they were, expanding and gently waving to and fro in the soup’s savory steam.
“Joey,” Bud said, after a moment.
“Huh? The cockles of the heart.”
“Oh, come on. Open the soup while I open the beans.”
“Open them and give them to me,” Mr. Ben said, setting two saucepans on the stove. “Then you can set the table while I get them ready.”
They opened the cans and gave them to Mr. Ben, then set the table and put the chicken out. Bud sliced some bread, opened a jar of jam, and they stood in the kitchen door watching Mr. Ben at the stove. He shook one saucepan and then the other; he had removed the lids from the top of the stove to hurry things along, and every time he raised one of the pans, a little of the firelight glowed on him. In the dim kitchen, lit by the single lamp, he looked somewhat like an old stooped alchemist trying to transmute some unimaginable mixture into gold. “Soup’s hot,” he said. “Get the plates.”
Joey got the plates and put them on the table, and Mr. Ben poured the soup into them. He put the lids on the stove again and set the beans back to keep warm, and they all picked up their plates and took them into the living room. Mr. Ben brought the other lamp and put it on the table and they all sat down and Bud picked up his spoon.
“Just a minute,” Mr. Ben said, and bowed his head. “O Lord, we thank Thee for what we are about to receive,” he said, and attacked his soup. He sucked in a spoonful with a sound that could only have been equaled by a powerful suction pump. “Ah,” he said. “Splendid! Splendid!”
The two boys looked at one another out of the corners of their eyes, and had a difficult time not to laugh aloud; it had been dinned into them that one ate soup silently. Mr. Ben was completely concentrated on his soup. They all finished it, the boys took out the plates and brought in the beans, and Mr. Ben cut up the chicken. No one said anything until the beans and chicken were gone, for the boys were still a little wary and Mr. Ben was enjoying himself too much to be distracted; then Joey brought in one of the cakes and they each had
a quarter of it.
Mr. Ben pushed back his chair. “Gentlemen, sir,” he said, “that was real fine.” He belched. “Yes, sir, real fine. I’ll wash the dishes. My hands get chapped and the dirt gets into them, and the hot dishwater takes it out.” He got up and took his plate into the kitchen, and they could hear him pouring water into a kettle. They took their own plates into the kitchen; neither of them was concerned with his hand-cleaning procedure. It would have horrified their mothers, but the boys rejoiced because they had no dishes to wash. He gave them dish towels and they dried the plates and knives and forks as he got through with them and put them away. He concentrated on his work; the kitchen was quiet except for a subdued rattle of dishes. An after-dinner peace descended upon them all, and the boys, having watched Mr. Ben with the soup and the rest of the meal, felt better about him. He began to seem almost like other people, and by the time they went back into the living room Joey was relaxed enough to remember the chewing tobacco. He went into the bedroom and brought it back.
“We brought you this from Chickahominy Forge,” he said, and handed Mr. Ben three packages.
“Well, that was real neighborly. Thank you both. I was just about out.” He went out to the kitchen, brought in a few sticks of wood, and put them into the sheet-iron stove, which began to roar almost at once, and turned the draft down. They pulled up chairs in a semicircle around it.
“Mr. Ben,” Bud said, “you reckon we could shoot some squirrels tomorrow?”
“Squirrel? Why not? If you want, you could borrow White’s dog.”
They both looked at him, trying to decide whether he was making fun of them again or not. They knew of the Whites, who lived five or six hundred yards up the road; the water came from there, carried over in buckets, for there was no well at the house. It had fallen in, and hadn’t been fixed yet. Both their fathers were quail hunters and they knew about bird dogs and beagles, but neither of them ever had heard of a squirrel dog. Squirrels lived in trees, and what could a dog do about that? A sudden constraint fell upon both of them.
The Pond Page 2