There was an erroneous notion that black cherries would make one tipsy—in a mild way. It was also claimed that choke cherries, some of which grew in the next bend above oh small trees like plum trees, were poisonous. That was erroneous, too.
Davey Cullom attempted to walk around on the edge of one of those tanvats, and fell in. The vat was filled with strong ooze, leachings from the oakbark and sumac. With the process then employed by my father it took four months to tan a calfskin—but Davey Cullom got his hide tanned in about fifteen minutes. Not with the ooze, however. It was because he could not walk, in a test, the twelve-foot length of a ten-inch board without stepping off.
Davey told his father that he had eaten too many cherries. But the gang knew he was fibbing. Davey Cullom was already “pickled” when he fell into that tanvat. And had it been any place other than the tanyard, my father could have had olfactory evidence of his offspring’s condition—but in a tanyard, there is but one smell.
After it was all over but the shouting, Davey’s father shrilled, “Howl, you pusillanimous little devil, howl! Maybe you’ll now stay out of that cherry tree.”
Just at that moment Jim Cardwell came staggering up from the creek bank, flourishing his bottle. “Anybody want a drink?” he queried. My father took the bottle and threw it into the creek. He never drank. He was awfully peeved. He swore. And let me say now whatever my father did, he did it well. “Jim,” he accused, “you’ve been giving Davey whiskey from your rotten old bottle!”Davey Cullom stopped his howling long enough to say, “No, daddy, it was the cherries; honest it was.” He supplemented his little lie with the further information that it was not the choke cherries, but the black cherries, that he had eaten. Then my father said, “I’ll cut that damned black cherry tree down tomorrow.”
Jim Cardwell laughed, drunkenly, and inquired, “Got a match, Bill?” My father didn’t smoke, and he didn’t have a match. Then Jim mumbled, “Furnish my own whiskey, find my own match.” He fumbled in his pockets and produced a match.
Jim walked over to the curly-headed boy who had lied so cleverly, and said, “Now, Davey, we can show Bill that you didn’t drink any of Jim’s old rot-gut.” Placing the match and a dollar in Davey’s hands, he said, “Bet you that dollar you can’t blow out the match.” Jim looked at us boys and grinned in a maudlin way. “Light the match and then blow it out, Davey, and the dollar is yours. John and all the boys here know you won’t take a dare; and I dare you!” he taunted. It was then I wished that I could make little crosses like Michael Norton to ward off impending disaster.
Jim staggered backwards a little as he continued. “But don’t light the match, Davey, until I get away. I know my old whiskey breath will burn like a house afire.” Davey Cullom stared, looked foolish and finally said, “I don’t want your dollar, Mr. Cardwell.”
I shall now explain. Speaking for the gang as well as myself, we thought Davey would put the stuff to his little lips, then, with a wry face, push it away—perhaps spill it on the ground, which, of course, would have tickled us immensely. But the little fellow, feeling that he must make sure of winning the dare, took not one but two small swigs of the raw stuff. Booze was booze then, and it took only a very little of it to make a small boy wobble. If it will help any to put over my alibi I will say now that the “pusillanimous little devil” made that face.
Now a bright idea struck one of the gang. I believe it might have been Will Gill—now Dr. W. W. Gill, of Enid, Oklahoma. He would know, of course. Anyway, someone had said, “Come Jim, let’s get your bottle.” They managed somehow to get into the tank-boat and they rowed out to deep water. And there, from some unexplained cause, the boat capsized. Michael Norton crossed himself three times.