  “Do you want to catch some fish, some real big black bass?” Tillie’s face shone, as she shouted this to Florence. Did she? The supreme thrill of a born fisherman, that which comes from seeing one’s line shoot out sweet and clean, telling of a bass on the hook, had come to her but three times in all her young life. “Do I!” She seized Tillie and gave her an impulsive hug. “Lead on!” “It’s a long way out. Two miles; maybe more.” “What’s two miles?” Florence tightened the muscles of her right arm till they were hard as stone. “We’ll go,” said Tillie. “I saw them yesterday; three big black bass. And were they black! And big! Long as your arm. Anyway, half. They all marched out to see my minnie, like three churchmen in black robes. They looked, then turned up their noses and marched right back into the weeds. “But now!” Her eyes shone in triumph. “I got crawdads (soft-shell crawfish). Five of them. And do they like ’em! You’ll see!” Half an hour later, in Florence’s clinker-built rowboat, their two pairs of bronzed arms flashing in perfect unison as they plied four stout ash oars, they glided down the bay toward Gull Rock Point. A second half hour had not elapsed before they were silently drifting toward the edge of a weed bed that ran along a narrow point. “It’s right there before us,” Tillie said in a low tone. “You can see the bullrushes. You can’t see the pikeweed, only a top sticking up here and there. The pikeweed’s got wide leaves and stands thick on the bottom like a forest. Fish hide there just as wolves and bears do in the woods. “Here’s the spot.” She dropped her anchor without the slightest splash. “You catch ’em by the back,” she whispered, seizing a crawfish. “So they can’t pinch you, you hook ’em through the tail. Then you spit on ’em. That’s for luck.” When she had performed all these ceremonies, she tossed her crawfish far out toward the edge of the weed bed. “Now for yours.” She adjusted Florence’s struggling crab, then sent him off at another angle from the boat. After that she jammed her boy’s cap down over one eye, squinted at the water with the other, and sat quietly down to wait. A moment passed into eternity; another, and yet another. Five minutes, ten, fifteen. The water lapped and gurgled about the boat. A slight breeze set the bullrushes murmuring. A great, green dragon fly came bobbing along over the water. A sea gull soared aloft, but uttered never a sound. From his point of vantage, what did he see? Two girls fishing. Quite true. But what of the fish? Were those three bass lying among the weeds? Had they seen the crawfish? It was Tillie who first knew the answer. The rattler was off her reel. The reel spun round with no effort and no sound. Suddenly it stopped. Tillie placed a thumb on the spool, then counted in a whisper. “One, two, three, four, five.” The tip of her pole executed a whip-like motion. The fish was hooked, the battle begun. She gave him line. She reeled him in. He saw the boat and ran. He leaped a full foot from the water. He came down with a splash. The line slackened. Was he off? No. One more wild tug. And after that a slow, relentless battle in which the girl won. The fish lay flopping in the boat, a fine three pounder. Tillie bent over him, exultant, when with startling suddenness a voice sounded in her ear. “Hey, you kids! Beat it! This is our fishing hole.” The tone was cold and gruff. Tillie looked up in amazement. Then she scowled. A trim sailboat, manned by two boys and a girl, all in their late teens, had glided silently up to them and dropped anchor. Tillie fixed her keen blue eyes upon the trio. All were dressed in silk pajamas and were smoking cigarettes. “Since when?” she demanded, as her hands moved toward an oar. “Since then!” The older of the two boys seized a short pike pole from the deck and struck her across the back. To Florence, who looked on, it seemed that Tillie’s red hair stood on end, as she seized her oar and, using it as a spear, gave the intruder a sharp thrust in the stomach that doubled him up and sent him reeling off the narrow deck into the water. “Hey, you little devil!” The other youth turned purple with rage. All to no purpose. Tillie’s oar mowed him down. He, too, went into the water. “That for all your robbin’, gamblin’ lot!” Tillie screamed. Then in quite another tone, “Up anchor and away. There’s a storm brewing.” They were away before the first of their adversaries had reached the side of the sailboat. The shore was not far away. Tillie headed straight for it. “Got to defend our ship,” she breathed. “But we lack ammunition.” Gull Rock Point is a finger of land three rods wide, a quarter of a mile long, extending straight out into the bay. Its shores are moderately steep and composed entirely of small rocks. They bumped the shore, threw off their anchor, caught at overhanging branches, and climbed to land. They looked about. The two boys were on board the sailboat now. They were lifting anchor and setting sail. “They’ll come after us,” said Tillie, in the calmly assured tone of a great commander. “Load up.” She set the example by piling her left arm with rocks the size of a baseball. “Don’t shoot till you see the whites of their eyes,” she murmured. “Make every shot count. We can retreat if we must. They’d never find us in the brush. But don’t give up the ship.” Silence once more hung over the bay as the sailboat glided forward. The rushes whispered, the dragon fly bobbed and the water winked in the sun. The sailboat was a beautiful thing. Highly varnished it was, and all trimmed in brass. “Must have cost a small fortune,” was Florence’s mental comment. “They’re rich. How does Tillie dare?” In all this there was no thought of disloyalty to Tillie. She was ready to fight the affair through at her side. “Come on,” shouted Tillie, as the boat drew near. “Come on, and I will give thy flesh unto the fowls of the air and to the beasts of the field.” The answer was a contemptuous laugh. This angered Tillie still more. “Come on!” she screamed, “come on, you crooks, you tin horn gamblers, you—!” The names Tillie called her adversaries belong only to the land of the north. Florence heard them that day for the first time. We shall not repeat them here, but utter a little prayer that Tillie may be forgiven in Heaven. She punctuated her last remark with a wild swing of the arm. Not so wild as it seemed, however, for a stone, crashing against the side of the highly polished craft, cut a jagged line of white for fully two feet. “Come on!” she screamed. “We’ll make your pretty boat look like a tin can the day after Fourth of July!” A second swing, a second streak of white down the shiny surface of brown. Suddenly, the younger of the two boys took command. He veered the boat sharply about, then went sailing away. “We win!” For the first time Florence saw that Tillie’s face had gone white. She slumped down among the rocks to hide her face in her hands. “I forgot!” she moaned at last. “I got mad, and I forgot. Now they’ll ruin us. Dad told me not to do it. But I done it all the same.” After that, for a long time the bay belonged to the rushes, the ripples and the dragon flies alone. Rising at last, Tillie seized the anchor line, drew the rowboat close in, climbed aboard, motioned to Florence to do the same, seized the oars and began to row. They fished no more that day. Not a word was spoken until the boat bumped at Tillie’s dock. Then Tillie, dangling the fine black bass from the end of a string, said, “Here! You take it. I couldn’t eat a bite of it. It’d choke me.” “Thanks.” “It’s all right. You’re a brick.” “So are you.” “Good-bye.” “Good-bye.” Tillie was gone. |
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