“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.