“‘Cause old Nancy Mucket got drownded there. I have heerd daddy tell ‘bout it er thous’n times. Old Nance was er mon’sus fisher, an’ old Dave Mucket tole her whatever she done not to tech his ash pole. Nance she tuck it right down an’ went to the creek. She never come back by night, an’ next day they drug the creek, and pulled her up from the bottom, where she was hung under er root. She had the very ash pole in her grip, and when the corrunner sot on her, ole Dave he come up and shuck his head mighty solemn like, and talks: ‘Nance, I tole you so; whenever wimmin gits to doin’ men’s doos they gits into trouble. God made ’em she folks fus, and they’ll have to stay she till the worl busts.’ Daddy mighty offen tells mo’er ‘bout it when she wants to go roun’ by herself or drive to town.”
“Is it a good place to fish?” asked Frank.
“Tain’t bad,” said Ben, laconically, at the same time throwing his legs, one after the other, over a low rail fence, and saying, “Here’s the place!”
We followed him over the fence, and through some tangled vines, and stopped at the water’s edge; the bank covered with short, thick grass, the shade perfectly dense, the yellow waters of the creek curdled with clear rings and ripples from a noisy branch, that bubbled limpidly from the coolest of springs over the whitest of pebbles.
Just where the clear and muddy water mingled, Ben affirmed the fish would bite best. We undid our poles and baited our hooks. Ben and Frank had a little unpleasantness, arising from Frank’s claiming a place for his pole to the detriment of Ben’s position. His manner and words were so insulting that Ben was about to strike him, when Ned and I interfered, and prevented blows.
We found, as Ben had said, it was a capital place to fish, for we were kept busily employed in attending to our poles. Ben, however, easily beat us all. He some way had a knack of fixing his bait and spitting on his hook, so that his line would scarcely touch the water before a fish would seize it.
The morning waned, however, and the sun had laid the shadows of the poles directly under them, when we all agreed that it was time for lunch.
We carried our basket up to the spring, which bubbled out of a large rock, and where Nature had spread us a table with a green velvet cloth. Ham sandwiches, with just enough mustard, broiled and devilled fowl, cold tongue, with the parsley between the slices, together with heaps of covered fruit pies, and mother’s especial boast, biscuit glacé, in the whitest of paper, to say nothing of a barrow full of peaches and melons which Reuben rolled down from the house, and placed to cool in a pond dammed up for the occasion; all were presented to appetites sharpened by the sport of the morning. Reversing the order of Aladdin’s feast, our viands disappeared with as wonderful celerity as his appeared. After we had fairly choked the branch with a mound of water-melon rinds and peach parings, we took our seats farther up on the grass, and left Reuben to clear up the table. Frank now drew forth his bottle of brandy and proposed that each one of us should tell a short story, entirely his own, and that he who could tell the most improbable, should have the bottle to himself. Ben stretched himself out on the grass, with his arm under his head, and said, drowsily, as he tore off with his teeth a large quid of tobacco from a twist he drew from his pocket:
“Blaze away wi’ yer lies. I’m a biled mullen stalk ef I can’t win at that game.”
Ned firmly declared he did not want any of the brandy, but said he would tell his story with the rest, merely to help out the fun. By request I was excused, that I might act as judge, and Frank, rapping on the bottle with his knife, asked Ned to begin. Ned reclined on one elbow, and said: