Secret of the Satilfa. Ted Dunagan

to the world, “We got us a spinning jenny!” Then he turned to me and said, “You ready to go again?”

      “Shoot yeah, let’s see if we can get it going faster this time.”

      The spinning jenny turned out to be the best thing my brother had built or invented so far. And for a while it was the number one thing on our list to do when we got home from school and on every opportunity we had on weekends. But then it turned into a nightmare.

Chapter Three

       Going Fishing

      The word got out about the spinning jenny and it wasn’t long before our cousins, our friends, and their cousins were all coming in droves.

      We had discovered that if two riders got on, and a third person, preferably a strong and fast one, pushed the board around as hard as they could and jumped clean at the last second, then the spinning jenny would sling all but the most tenacious off the board, making it a contest to see who could stay on and who would be slung off.

      It was used so much a round trench was worn in the ground underneath the ends of the board.

      Soon there were crushed toes, skinned elbows and knees, heads conked when someone fell off instead of being slung off, and fights over who was going to ride it next.

      Fred decided we were going to initiate a charge to ride, but before he could implement his toll, one of our cousins broke an arm.

      Her parents, along with others, descended upon our momma with numerous complaints until one Saturday afternoon she marched out to the spinning jenny with my brother Ned and had him pull the plank off the stump and deposit it under the house.

      And that was the end of the spinning jenny, which was all right with me. The thrill of it had diminished, and the only thing I regretted was that my friend Poudlum Robinson hadn’t had an opportunity to ride it.

      I hadn’t seen Poudlum for a while. That was because he was black and we didn’t go to the same school. Since the warmth of summer had faded, I had only seen him a couple of times on weekends over at Miss Lena’s Store.

      The store was halfway between his house and mine, so we met there sometimes and had us both a peach-flavored Nehi soda and an ice cream sandwich. We used the money we had secretly stashed away back during the summer. It was the reward we had given ourselves after discovering an illegal whiskey-making operation and the bootlegger’s cache of cash in a hollow tree way back in the woods on Satilfa Creek.

      Thanksgiving weekend was coming up and Poudlum and I had planned weeks ago to spend it camping out at a fishing hole on that same creek.

      My momma wasn’t too keen on the idea, but when I came home from school with the first prize for the Thanksgiving Poem, she relented and gave her permission.

      My fifth-grade teacher had assigned everyone to write a poem about what they were thankful for. We had to turn them in on Tuesday, and on Wednesday afternoon before we were dismissed for the long weekend, she announced she was going to recite the winning poem.

      I just about fell out of my seat when she began reading my Thanksgiving Poem:

      I’m thankful for dressing and gravy

      And the boys serving in the Navy

      I’m thankful for turkey and ham

      And for tough old Uncle Sam

      I’m thankful for squash casserole

      And for the heroes of old

      I’m thankful for pecan pie

      And for the beautiful sky

      I’m thankful for bread and butter

      And for my two brothers

      I’m thankful for sweet potato pie

      And for being old enough not to cry

      I’m thankful for sweet ice tea

      And for the opportunity to just be

      I’m thankful for green beans and butter beans

      And for all the children and the teens

      I’m thankful for lemon glazed pound cake

      And for being able to swim in the lake

      I’m thankful for potato salad

      And for the numbers when my friends are tallied

      I’m thankful for being physically sustained

      And for the grace of being spiritually without blame

      The teacher gave me an A-plus and wrote a note to my momma on my poem informing her I had won first place. I could tell by the look on Momma’s face when she read it that I could go camping for a week if I wanted to.

      Poudlum and I planned to meet at Miss Lena’s Store on Friday after Thanksgiving Day, right after our noon meal. That way we would have time to walk to the Cypress Hole on the Satilfa, set up camp, and get in some fishing before it got dark. I just hoped he had done something to make his momma happy, too.

      Thanksgiving Day came and went. Since my daddy was gone we all went to Aunt Cleo’s and Uncle Elmer’s house and ate turkey and all the trimmings with them.

      On Friday, I was anxious to get going. My momma served up big bowls of steaming vegetable soup with corn bread and buttermilk, which was a welcome change from all the rich food the day before.

      While I was sopping up the dregs of the soup with a piece of cornbread, she was fixing me a bag of biscuits left over from breakfast. She would bore a hole into them with her finger and pour the hole full of Blue Ribbon cane syrup, pinch the hole closed, and then wrap them up in waxed paper.

      “These biscuits will fill you up in case you and Poudlum don’t catch any fish,” she said. “But I ’spect y’all will, cause black folks know how to fish. I want y’all to be real careful around that water now,” she concluded as she began packing my stuff into a small cotton picking sack.

      She had allowed me to take one of her old skillets, a small one, along with an old quilt, a box of matches, a packet of salt, some cornmeal, and a half-pint jar filled with lard to fry the fish in.

      “You got your pocketknife?” she asked.

      “Yes, ma’am, and Ned sharpened it real good for me this morning so I can scale them fish and clean them properly,” I said as I slipped the strap of the sack over my shoulder.

      My momma hugged me and said, “Now remember, if y’all get too cold or hungry just go to your Uncle Curtis’s house. It’s not too far from the creek.”

      The strap of the sack was cutting into my shoulder before I got to the store. I hoped Poudlum’s load was lighter so we could take turns carrying mine. The only thing I had told him to bring was a quilt and some fish hooks.

      He was nowhere in sight when I arrived at the store, so I set my sack by the steps at the front door, went in, and started gathering some supplies just in case the fish weren’t biting. I didn’t want to be stuck in the woods hungry with nothing except biscuits to eat.

      We planned to be there two nights, so I counted the meals in my mind while I selected cans of Vienna sausage, sardines, potted meat, pork and beans, and four dime boxes of saltines. We didn’t have to worry about anything to drink; we could just drink water from the creek.

      “Good Lord,” Lena cried out when I piled it all on the counter. “Son, what you planning to with all this stuff?”

      “Me and Poudlum gonna camp out and fish on the creek. This stuff is just in case we don’t catch any fish.”

      After she bagged it all up I paid her and went outside and stuffed it all into my sack even as I became concerned about the weight of it.

      I looked down Center Point