Back in 1928 it seemed like it was always summer in Pollen Bend.  The streets were dust, the grass was parched, and the Magnolia trees gave us shade from the fierce sun.  Of course it must have rained, but my kid brother Jeb and I never noticed, and it never slowed us down none.  Days had a lazy quality to them.  Only the very rich had automobiles, and we lived way out in the sticks, so the loudest ambient sounds we heard were the hum of bees and the song of the mockingbirds, singing their hearts out, punctuated by the lowing of our cows.  In later years all this would be drowned out by the noise and fumes of traffic driving past our place, always in a hurry to get from one place to another, but when we were kids our remote corner of Mississippi was a peaceful slice of heaven.

Paw worked our little farm on the bank of the Pollen River with a lot of help from Jeb, Maw and me.  He'd get up early to milk our 3 cows, then he'd do the heavy work around the place, ploughing in season, repairing the fences, harvesting the corn and so on, then evidently felt that he'd done his bit, and left the rest of it to Maw and us kids.

While we fed the chickens and collected the eggs, churned the milk into rich yellow butter, weeded and harvested the vegetable patches, sprayed and fertilised the corn, our one cash crop, he'd retire to the front porch with his .22 and a jug of moonshine.  During our labours we'd hear the occasional bang as he potted jaybirds, crows and anything else that took his fancy.  The occasional jackrabbit made its way onto our dining table, so with the fresh greens from the garden, the fruit and pecans from our trees, Maw's homemade cornbread and fresh milk, butter and eggs, we ate pretty good for the times.

The lower the level in the current jug, the worse Paw's aim got, and the odd farm cat might have found itself on our dinner plates if Maw hadn't put her foot down and buried the poor bullet ridden carcass.  It wasn't that Paw was cruel, just that his mind seemed to take off for new pastures after he'd been into the moonshine.  He produced it himself in a distant gully on the Potter place, unknown to Mr Potter, who didn't get around too well nowadays.

One late afternoon when Paw was swinging gently in the porch swing, brushing away the flies with his hat, jug in hand, that Deputy Don Coleman drove up in his new black Ford, dusty from the dry roads.  Wiping the dust from his face with a fancy red bandanna, his long lanky form made its way up the steps, and he seated himself on the porch rail opposite Paw.

'Hey Don, you out here on business or do you want a swaller?' asked Paw, holding out his jug.

'Can't, Rudy,' Don replied.  'I'm out here 'cos of a complaint I got against you this morning.'

Paw noticed Jeb and me hanging on every word, so he shooed us off, telling us to lose ourselves for a while.  So Jeb and I went round the back of the house and managed to lose ourselves so well that we ended up beneath the porch, directly below the porch swing, and we heard every word they said.

'So what's up Don?' we heard him ask.  'What has anybody got to complain about me for?'

'It's one of the city folk down at the new apartment block.'

Two years ago the county in its wisdom had concocted a plan to boost local business and give city families the opportunity to experience country life, and built something that we'd never before seen.  It was a block of three dozen or so apartments that they rented out by the week to any city folk who could afford to pay to vacation in our little backwater.

 If you can imagine the point farthest from anywhere in Mississippi, we were it.  We'd got used to the rubbernecking city folk from Jackson leaning over our fences, oohhing and aahhing at our cows and chickens.  We had an ongoing battle with them though, as they traipsed the countryside, leaving gates open, and frequently complaining about being chased by somebody's bull or pig.  We still laugh at the memory of a fat woman being chased off Old Man Gifford's place by his flock of angry geese, all honking loudly, with wings flapping.  She had to knock on his door and ask him to get her abandoned hat back, only to find that his geese had done what they do best all over it!

This time though, the situation was more serious, as one irate father had complained that his young son had been shot at, and he had the bullet hole in the kid's hat to prove how close it had come to letting daylight into his offspring.

'So where'd this happen?' asked Paw belligerently.

'Down in that clump of oaks.  The child was up a tree, watching your boys chasing some chickens back into the pen.'

'Musta thought he was a bird,' said Paw, not too concerned at this point.  'Anyways, he'd a been trespassing 'cos that stand of trees is on my property.'

'Point is, 'said Don, 'You could have killed the kid, and I'd have been up to my ears in paperwork for the next three days.  Sorry Rudy, but I gotta take that there gun into custody, seeing as you ain't got no licence for it anyways.  Otherwise that man's going to get some fancy lawyer down here to sue your ass.  You'd have to sell off both your kids to pay his expenses, and if you lost, you'd have to sell off the missis as well.'

If Jeb and I said what Paw said next, Maw would have washed out our mouths with lye soap.  Later I explained to Jeb that basically Paw said that Don's parents hadn't been properly introduced to each other, and that the complaining man should do the impossible on himself.

Don said that that was all well and good, but if Paw didn't surrender his gun, then he couldn't save him from trouble, and did Paw really want to lose the farm?  At this Paw calmed down a little, and began to use his head.  'But Don, you know that without this gun we wouldn't eat too good some days.  We depend on it.'

'Sorry Rudy, but laws are laws.'

'Look here,' Paw said after scratching his grey hair into wild abandon on top of his head.  'How about you take the gun until after that feller and his family goes back to Jackson?  Then you could bring it back the next day, and we'll all be happy.'

'And next time you get drunk you might not shoot so high and kill somebody?  Sorry, no,'

'But...'

'Aw, tell you what.  You get a licence for that thing, send your eldest boy into town each day and we'll teach him to fire it sensibly.  What's his name, Jake?  He can take over the chore of hunting for the pot.'

Paw grumbled, but he was in a corner and he knew it.  I was thrilled.  I'd been begging Paw to teach me to shoot, but he just kept telling me I wasn't big enough.  Hell, I was ten years old, and the biggest kid in our year at school.

After Paw capitulated, Don noticed the time, and realised he was now off duty, so he held out a hand for Paw's jug.  We knew it was all over bar the shouting, so Jeb and I crawled out from our hiding place, and circled around to prudently appear from the direction of the henhouse.

'Everything OK Paw?'  I called out innocently.

'Shut your mouth and git yourselves inside and help your Maw get dinner ready,' he growled.

And I walked up the porch steps and into the house, feeling ten feet tall, with my heart swelled with pride.  Jake the mighty hunter!  Look out Mr Jack Rabbit, here I come!