In the spring of 1929, Jeb and I became brothers to a baby girl.  It wasn’t our first choice, as we’d looked forward to showing a younger brother all the ways we’d found to bend the rules around our farm without getting caught too often.

While Doc Jellicoe was at the house overseeing her arrival, Paw made Jeb and me go looking for pretty flowers to give to Maw.  After we came back for the second time with two flowers each, Paw lost his patience, and told us not to come back until we’d been all the way over to Mrs Matilda Potter’s place and begged for a few of her roses.

I didn’t want to go see her, as I was sure she’d yell at me for tying a tin can to her cat’s tail last summer.  Paw just said I’d have to apologise to her if she said anything, and anyway, why didn’t we go by way of the river, and try to catch a small fish for her to give to the cat as a peace offering?

“Paw, do we have to?”  Jeb asked plaintively.  “I want to wait here and see if I can get a look at the stork that’s bringing the baby.  I ain’t never seen one of them before.  I bet they’re a lot bigger than those old jay birds that hang out in the oak trees down yonder.”

“Jake, I think you need to have a word with your little brother, “ Paw said, and I could see he was trying hard not to smile.

“I already done that Paw, “ said I, “but it didn’t take.  He believes old Jerry Lee Miller ahead of me, just ‘cos he’s a grown up.”

Paw raised his eyes to Heaven.  “Git!”

We got.

Grabbing our rods from under the house we took off for our waterhole in the Pollen River, a real fancy name for the crick that ran past our farm, where we did a lot of swimming in a decent waterhole and caught a few fish.  We dug around in the bank and soon found a couple of crawlers to use for bait, and sat there in the shade of a large beech tree and dabbled the bugs in the water on the end of our lines, so they’d look like they were swimming around.

Well, it weren’t too long before Charlie turned up and began to tease us again.  He’d swim around the bait and watch us out of a fishy eye, his whiskers trembling in silent laughter.

“Darned old catfish!” grumbled Jeb.  “Get back down to the bottom where you belong and stop chasing the proper fish away.”

Eventually Charlie got tired of his game and sank back down to the depths where he scavenged for whatever it was that kept his belly full.  One day I’d catch him and feed him to the farm cats.  He ate too much rubbish to make him fit for us humans to eat.  Paw told us that was why they called them catfish.

Not long after Charlie disappeared, I got a tug on my line and pulled in a fish about half a pound in size and figured that was enough for a stupid cat that sat on old Mrs Potter’s lap instead of chasing after mice and rats like real cats did.  We hid our rods under a bush and took off unwillingly to the Potter place, a rundown shack that looked as if the roof was going to blow away in the next breeze, but whose garden was full of roses that won prizes at the county fair every year.  The Potter mantelpiece was full of cups and rosettes proclaiming her success to the world.  Jeb and I thought she should get a prize for having a moustache bigger than her husband’s.

Drawing near to the house, we saw Mrs Potter sitting on the porch in a rocking chair.  Although the day was as warm as usual, she had a bright multi coloured shawl wrapped around her skinny shoulders and a grey fluffy cat on her lap.

“Hey Mrs Potter!  Real nice shawl you have there.”  I was nothing if not polite.

“Won first prize at the fair year before last!” she announced proudly, her false teeth clicking as she spoke.  “Ain’t you the two Barton boys?”

“Yes Ma’am.  I’m Jake and he’s Jeb.”

“How’s your Mom going?  Had her baby yet?”

“No Ma’am, but the doctor’s there with his black bag right now, and our Paw got us to catch a fish for your cat, and to ask if you could spare a few of those pretty flowers for our Maw.”

She reached out and took the fish from me.  “You hear that Monty?  These boys have brought you a nice fresh fish for your dinner.  My, what a nice looking fish.  Right neighbourly of you boys.  I’ll be proud to pick out a few nice blooms for your Mom.  You just come round to the side garden.  I have some real nice ones there.”

She put Monty down onto the porch and heaved herself out of her chair.  Pulling her shawl tighter around her shoulders, she led the way around to her side garden, then asked me, “What colour roses does your Mom like best?” 

“I don’t know Ma’am, but she has a red rose pressed in the pages of her family Bible.”

“Red ones it is then.  You young one, bring me my shears from the shed and we’ll cut a few nice ones for your Mom.”

When Mrs Potter had cut off a dozen or so red roses, she moved away to a patch of fiddlehead ferns and began to add these to the roses, so that their tightly curled heads stuck up behind the flowers.

“Excuse me,” I blurted out.  “But why are you adding vittles to the flowers?  I don’t think Maw’s hungry.”

“They aren’t to eat,” she said, smiling.  “They’re to set off the roses and make ‘em look even purtier.”

This made as much sense to me as adding a few carrots to the flowers, but I was only a kid, and still couldn’t figure out what made adults tick.  I sure hoped I’d learn before I grew up, or I’d make a failure at being an adult, kinda like Billy Bob Field, who spent his days drunk and stealing things off decent folk.  He’d spent time in the lockup, but it hadn’t taught him a lesson.  Paw said he’d been born bad, a real misfit.  I didn’t want to turn out like that, so I listened to everything adults said and watched what they did so I could learn the proper way to do things.  Maw just said I was inquisitive, and scared to death of missing something.

Mrs Potter tied a bit of string around the flowers and greens to stop them from falling apart.  She handed me the bunch, and said, “Don’t forget to say Hi to your Mom for me.”

We thanked her and headed out the garden gate.  I was thinking that things had gone better than I’d feared, but then Mrs Potter yelled after me, “Don’t think I’ve forgotten about you tormenting poor Monty.  You’ll get your comeuppance one day Jake Barton!”

I fled so fast that I left Jeb far behind and was sitting on a rock nursing a stitch when he finally caught up with me.

“You OK, Jake?”

“Sure Jeb.  Mean old crow!  I didn’t do that Goddamned cat any harm, just livened up its day a little is all.”

We got back to the house just in time to see the Doc putting his black bag into his buggy.  “Your Maw done had her baby,” he called to us.  “A bright looking little girl, as pretty as a June bug.  Them’s real petty flowers, must have cost you a lot.”

“You’ll never know!”  I muttered through gritted teeth.

Paw took the doctor onto the porch and gave him a shot of moonshine to celebrate.  Doc coughed and spluttered and said it was the best moonshine in the county, and he’d sampled them all.

After Doc Jellicoe finally left the house after seeing to it that Maw and the baby were both doing fine, Paw took us both upstairs to his and Maw’s bedroom to let us meet our new sister.

We found Maw propped up on pillows, with her hair damp with sweat, looking exhausted but proud at the same time.  She held a blanket wrapped bundle in her arms, which on further inspection proved to be a red screwed up face topped by a fuzz of dark hair.

“Hey boys, come and meet your sister, Mindy Lou.  Isn’t she pretty?”  I didn’t say anything ‘cos I didn’t want to upset Maw by telling her I’d almost caught a greased piglet at the last county fair that was bigger than the baby, and it wasn’t half as ugly as her anyway.

“Is that it?” asked Jeb.  “Did I miss the stork?”

“Jeb honey, there is no stork.  You can’t believe everything your brother tells you.”

I was outraged.  “But I never said any such thing!  That was Dusty Miller’s Paw that told him that tarradiddle.”  I declared.  “I taught him the facts of life properly, about how our animals have babies on the farm and all.”

“Well, I keep meaning to explain things better to you two, but it never seemed to be the right moment.  But you’re real smart Jake, for figuring it out for yourself.”

“Thanks Maw,” I grinned and looked around the room.  “Now where did the doctor put the egg shell?  I’d like to take a piece of it into class on Monday for show and tell.”