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cork for a bobber, so I dug some worms and me and Sig
Freed went fishing. And the funny part of it was there
was real fish in the lake. I caught four. Uncle Sagamore
said they was red perch, and Pop fried  em for me for
supper in the baloney grease. They was sure good.
Right after noon I wanted to go swimming, but when I
went up to the trailer Miss Harrington was lying
stretched out in a long canvas chair having a drink and
said we couldn t go until just about sundown. Dr
Severance was lying in another chair having a drink too
The Diamond Bikini  63
and he says to her,  Hey, what s with all this swimming,
anyway? Don t tell me I m being back-doored by a kid
that ain t even old enough to start smoking cornsilk.
And she says,  Oh, shut up, can t you think about
anything else for at least five minutes?
He says,  Well, there s gratitude for you. I save your
goddam life for you, and now I got to move a seven-year-
old kid out of the way every time I want to collect a little
on account.
Then she says,  Gratitude? Believe me, buster, the next
time anybody says we re going up in the country and lay
around for a while, I ll know what he means.
They kept on talking like they d already forgot I was
there, so I went back and waded around in the shallow
edge of the lake just below where Uncle Finley was
working on his boat, and tried to catch crawfish. The
water was only about waist deep and I could see lots of
 em on the bottom but I never could catch any. They
scooted backward too fast.
Uncle Sagamore and Pop just sat around in the shade
all day and talked and had a drink out of the glass jar
now and then. I remembered Uncle Sagamore telling the
sheriff how he had to work eighteen hours a day to pay
his taxes, and I asked Pop if he was on vacation. Pop said
it was kind of a slack season on farms right now, and that
things usually picked up a little later on in the year...
About sundown Miss Harrington went up to the point
with me and we had another swimming lesson. She had a
shower cap with her this time so her hair wouldn t get
wet, and she could get her face down in the water and
really swim. A crawl, she called it.
I got a little better, too. I could go six or eight feet
before I went under. She said I was trying too hard to
keep my face out of the water, though, and that was
making me sink.
The next morning bright and early Uncle Sagamore and
Pop took the truck and went down in the woods back of
the cornfield and brought the tubs up to the house. The
smell was even worse than it had been before. They set
 em right in the same place, along the side of the house
The Diamond Bikini  64
next to the well. There wasn t much breeze, either, to
blow it away.
Well, they stayed there for nearly a week, night and
day, but like Pop said after a while you got used to it and
didn t mind. I asked him why they didn t take  em away
at night, because there wasn t any sun then anyhow, but
he says it was too much trouble to carry  em back and
forth.
About the fifth or sixth day they was there I d got so
used to the odor I could even go up to the tubs without it
knocking me down, so I went over to see how the leather
was coming along. I got a stick and lifted one of the
cowhides up, and doggone if the stick didn t just poke
right through it. It was coming apart in the tubs just like
the last batch had.
I went right away to call Pop and Uncle Sagamore to
tell  em about it, but I couldn t find  em. They d been
setting in the shade of the chinaberry tree in the back
yard just a few minutes ago, having a drink out of the
glass jar, but now they was gone.
I looked all around, and called, and went through the
house, but I couldn t find  em. So I walked down to the
barn, and they wasn t there either, but when I went back
to the house again they was setting right there under the
chinaberry tree where they d been in the first place.
When I told  em about the leather coming apart Uncle
Sagamore kind of frowned and they came around and
looked theirselves. Uncle Sagamore took the stick and
poked at one of the hides, and sure enough it just went
right through.
He straightened up and sailed out some tobacco juice
and scratched his head.  Well sir, by golly, she sure is,
he says.  What you reckon we re doin that s wrong,
Sam?
Pop scratched his head too.  Well, I just don t rightly
know, he says.  But it sure don t look right. Leather
hadn t ought to be that tender.
 I done everything just like the bulletin says, the one I
got from the Gov ment, Uncle Sagamore says.  I
followed it real careful this time so s there couldn t be no
chance for a mistake. What you reckon we ort to do?
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Pop studied for a moment.  Only one thing we can do,
he says.  We got to let her run full course. Ain t no use
startin another new batch now, because she ll probably
wind up just like this. We got to let her simmer right out
to the end, and then when she s all finished we ll send a
little bit of it to the Gov ment and ask  em to take a look
at it and tell us what we done wrong.
 Well sir, that s the way I got her figured too, Uncle
Sagamore says, nodding his head.  Them fellers in the
Gov ment can t tell nothin about it less n we follow the
instructions right out to the end. So we ll just let her ride.
Only take about another month and a half.
 Why, in a month and a half it probably won t be
nothing but soup, I says.
 Well, ain t nothing we can do about that, Uncle
Sagamore says.  Just have to send  em some of the soup,
then. Instructions is instructions, and if you don t do
what they say the Gov ment can t tell you nothing.
 But look at all the time that s wasted, I says.
Uncle Sagamore shifted his tobacco over.  Well, hell,
he says,  what s time to a dead cowhide, or the
Gov ment?
So they decided to do it that way. It seemed to me like
we wasn t going to make much money out of the tannery
if another month and a half had to go by before they
started a new batch and they already knew this one was
ruined, but there wasn t no use arguing with Pop and
Uncle Sagamore.
I was having too much fun to worry about it anyway. I
went fishing early every morning, and late in the evening
Miss Harrington would give me another swimming
lesson. In between times, in the afternoon when she
wouldn t go in I d practise in the shallow water at this
end of the lake, just below where Uncle Finley was
building his boat. And that s where the funny thing
happened, the one I couldn t figure out at all.
I reckon it was the next day after we discovered the
leather was ruined. It was right after noon. Sig Freed
was sitting on the bank watching me, because he didn t
like water, and I was wading around and practising
swimming not far from the bank, where it was about
waist-deep. And all of a sudden I hit a warm place in the
water.
The Diamond Bikini  66
The lake itself wasn t real cold, of course. Just kind of
cool and nice, about right to swim in, but I could sure tell [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]