“After the second day,” he said, “I sometimes give ’way them I haint sold.” Even at this price, some of them were probably quite expensive.
THE LITTLE SMOKE HOUSE
Snuggled up against the bluff, near the shanty he lived in, was an odd-looking little structure that John used for a smoke-house. When his fish became a little too passé to permit of ready sales, or, as he expressed it, “too soft,” he smoked them. Thus disguised, they were again ready for the channels of commerce.
He generally included some smoked fish in his load when he started out, and usually it was not their first trip.
While his thrift was commendable, it was always best to let the output of that little smokehouse severely alone, for its roof, like charity, covered a multitude of sins.
Sipes declared that he always knew when the old man “was gittin’ ready to smoke fish, if the wind was right.”
His nickname had been acquired because of the yellow slimy things which he procured from the sluggish river, when the storms prevented supplies from the lake. A prodigious haul of catfish was made from the river one spring by a settler, who turned the catch over to John to peddle on shares.
“I loaded up them fish, an’ I peddled ’em clear to the Indianny line. I was gone a week, an’ I sold ’em all. When I got back that feller said ’e hadn’t never seen no fish peddled like them was.”
I tried to get him to talk about some of the characters he had met in his travels, but he said he “didn’t never ask no questions of nobody.” Then, after a long silence, he remarked, reflectively, “I guess them fellers that stole the pork prob’ly left the country.”