The Land Remembers: The Story of a Farm and Its People by Ben Logan

Author:Ben Logan [Logan, Ben]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780299309084
Google: AAVuswEACAAJ
Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press
Published: 2017-11-15T00:25:01.709522+00:00

A Day of Our Own

In spite of long days in the fields, something in the summer brought the four of us boys closer together. A day when we did not have to work was very special. It was ours. We were free. We could vanish into the child-hiding green of hundreds of acres of countryside and make a world out of a single day.

The bits and pieces of such days merge into one great whole so that I remember a day going on forever. We dug worms and put them into empty cans that would fit into our pockets, sometimes just a flat Prince Albert tobacco can, the tobacco gone into Lyle’s pipe. We put lines, hooks, and sinkers into another pocket, and always a jackknife. We packed a lunch in a paper bag, ran down along the old hill road, then on down the dry hollow to Halls Branch Creek. We cut limber willow poles, bending them so our knives sliced quickly through the wood, tied our lines on, put a squirming worm on the hook, and were fishing five minutes after reaching the water.

Then the waiting, lying back on the grassy bank, the sun warm, the breeze rattling the leaves of the cottonwoods and bending the willows, the stream singing its way down the valley. Round-mouthed suckers and fighting chubs bit now and then, pulling our corks under. Sometimes we took naps, line wrapped around a finger or bare toe so we’d wake when we had a bite. As the fish bit or did not bite we’d wander downstream, trying each pool.

Once we found a burlap bag net along the bank. Two willow hoops kept it open, and a willow pole was lashed on to make a handle. Laurance put the net in the water at a narrow place below the pool.

The rest of us went upstream and loaded our arms with rocks, ready to drive the fish down toward the net. When Laurance called, we started throwing rocks into the water, each a little ahead of the last, splash, splash, splash, almost never hitting each other, and yelling at the top of our lungs as though the fish could hear.

Our rocks splashed right up to the net. Laurance lifted it out, the willow handle bending, water streaming out through the mesh of the bag. He put it down on the bank and peered inside. “Hey!” he yelled. “Hey!”

We raced across the creek toward him. He lifted out a two-foot-long rainbow trout, gleaming silver and red in the sun. Laurance stood with it struggling in his hands for a minute, then put it back into the water. It disappeared with a big swirl.

It was the biggest trout we had ever seen. We crowded around Laurance, ready to push him in after the fish.

“I had to put it back,” he said, voice dry, almost a whisper. “It’s against the law to catch trout with a net.”

“Well, we could’ve kept him a minute just to look.”

“He’d die in a few minutes.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.