He looked at me as though he thought this was significant, then continued: “But I’m really not inclined to think that all this stuff is true or that there is a deep laid spiritual connection between France and Indiana. I don’t. It’s all amusing speculation, but I do believe there is something in the soil and light idea.”
He leaned back and we ceased talking.
CHAPTER LIII
FISHING IN THE BUSSERON AND A COUNTY FAIR
It was just outside of Sullivan, a mile or two or three, that we encountered the Busseron, the first stream in which, as a boy, I ever fished. The strangeness of that experience comes back to me even now—the wonder, the beauty of a shallow stream, pooled in places, its banks sentineled by tall trees, its immediate shoreline ornamented by arrogant weeds and bushes blooming violently.
The stillness of the woods, the novelty of a long bamboo pole and a white line and a red and green cork; a hook, worms, the nibble of the unseen creature below the yellow surface of the stream. Even now I hear a distant gun shot—hunters prowling after birds. I see a dragon fly, steely blue and gauze of wing, fluttering and shimmering above my cork (why should they love cork floats so much?). My brother Ed has a nibble! Great, kind heaven, his cork is gone—once! twice!!
“Pull him out, Ed.”
“For God’s sake, pull him out!”
“Gee, look at that!”
Oh, a black and white silvery fish—or a dark, wet, slippery cat—as lovely and lustrous as porcelain. Oh, it’s on the grass now, flipping here and there. My nerves are all a-tingle, my hair on end, with delight. I can scarcely wait until I get a bite—hours perhaps—for my brother Ed was always a luckier fisherman than I, or a better one.
And then late in the afternoon, after hours of this wonder world, we trudge home, along the warm, dusty, yellow country road; the evening sun is red in the West, our feet buried in the dust. Not a wagon, not a sound, save that of wood doves, bluejays, the spiritual, soulful, lyric thrush. On a long, limp twig with a fork at the end is strung our fish, so small and stiff now—so large, glistening, brilliant, when we caught them. On every hand are field fragrances, the distant low of cows and the grunts of pigs. I hear the voice of a farmer—"Poo-gy! Poo-gy! Poogy! Poogy!"