Summer of the Monkeys (12 page)

Papa laughed and said, “That may not be a bad idea. We could probably make more money catching monkeys than we can farming.”

Daisy had overheard Mama and Papa. She poked her head around the corner of the barn and said, “Jay Berry, if you and Mama and Papa catch those monkeys, I’ll hold the sack for you.”

This seemed to fix everything. Mama and Papa started laughing at Daisy. I was feeling so good about Papa going with me to dig the hole, I laughed a little, too.

Right after supper, while Papa was putting some coal oil in the lantern, I went to the tool shed and got a pick and shovel.

“It might be a good idea to take the ax along,” Papa said. “We may run into some roots while we’re digging the hole.”

“I hadn’t thought of that, Papa,” I said. “We’ll run into some roots all right. You can’t dig an inch down in those bottoms without running into roots. I know, because Old Rowdy and I have tried to dig rabbits out of their holes down there.”

All excited, I ran and got the ax.

As we were leaving the house, Mama and Daisy came out on the porch to see us on our way.

Mama was still in a good humor. She laughed and said, “I hope no one sees my husband down in the river bottoms, at night, digging a hole. What would you tell people?”

“I’ll just tell them that we’re looking for a pot of gold,” Papa
said. “Then everyone in the country will be digging holes. How will that be?”

Daisy squealed her delight and said, “Jay Berry, you’d better be careful. If you wake those monkeys up, they might get mad and run you clean out of the country.”

I wanted to say something back to Daisy but I figured that as long as Mama was in a good humor I had better leave well enough alone. So I just walked on like I hadn’t even heard what she had said.

Old Rowdy thought we were going possum hunting and he was raring to go. He came over, reared up on me, and all but busted my eardrums with his deep voice.

It was one of those warm, full-moon nights when it’s so bright it’s more like twilight in the evening than nighttime. Thousands of lightning bugs were dancing a flickering rhythm all around us. Overhead, I could hear the hissing whistles of feeding bats as they dipped and darted in the starlit sky.

From deep in the river bottoms, an old hooty owl was asking his age-old question, over and over, “Who-o-o, who-o-o, who-o-o are you? Who-o-o, who-o-o are you?”

If Papa hadn’t been with me I would have answered him by saying, “I am the booger man. I’m coming to get you.”

That usually shut old hooty up.

Feeling big and important, I said, “Papa, it sure is a pretty night, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is,” Papa said. “Nights like this are good for planting. The soil gets warm and mellow. Everything you plant will pop up out of the ground before you know it.”

Right then I wasn’t interested in any old green thing popping up out of the ground. I was interested in monkeys, ponies, .22s, and things like that.

Papa said, “It’s going to be a lot darker in the bottoms than it is out here in the fields. Do you think you can find that monkey tree?”

“Oh, sure, Papa,” I said. “I could find that monkey tree if I had a cotton sack over my head. You just follow me.”

It wasn’t as easy finding the tree as I thought it would be. Several times I got on the wrong trail but I finally found it.

Setting the lantern down on the ground, Papa said, “Where do you think we should dig the hole?”

“Oh, anywhere, Papa,” I said, looking around. “One place is as good as another, just so it’s close to this bur oak tree.”

Picking out a small opening in the underbrush, Papa raked the dead leaves and sticks to one side with the shovel and started digging. Every time Papa ran into a root he would rest while I hacked away with the ax. The rich black soil was soft and easy digging. In no time we had a good-size hole dug.

Climbing out of the hole, Papa said, “How does that look? Do you think it’s deep enough?”

I looked the hole over and said, “There’s one way to be sure, Papa. Rowdy and I will get down in it and see how it fits.”

Papa chuckled and said, “Do you think you can get Rowdy down in the hole?”

“Oh, I won’t have any trouble doing that, Papa,” I said. “Old Rowdy will do just about anything I ask him to do. There’s only one thing he won’t do. He won’t help me fight wasp nests. He won’t have any part of that.”

Still chuckling, Papa said, “Well, you can’t hardly blame him for that.”

I got down in the hole and called to Rowdy.

“Come on, boy,” I said. “You may as well get used to this hole because we might be sitting in it for a long time.”

During the past few days, I had asked Rowdy to do so many things he had never done before that he didn’t know straight up from straight down. Standing on the rim of the hole and peering down at me, he started whining and whimpering and fidgeting around. Then he just hauled off and jumped clean over the hole
and looked at me from another angle. I could hear Papa chuckling in the darkness.

“Aw, Rowdy,” I said, “what’s the matter with you. Surely you’re not scared of this little old hole. Why, you’ve had your nose in every hole in these bottoms. Come on now.”

Whimpering like he was getting ready to swim the ice-cold waters of the river, Rowdy got down on his belly, slid off into the hole, and sat down by my side.

“I’m sorry, boy,” I said, patting his head. “I know I’ve got you all mixed up but in the morning I think you’ll understand what this is all about.”

“Well, what do you think?” Papa asked.

“It’s just right, Papa,” I said, “but there’s one more thing we have to do.”

“What’s that?” Papa asked.

Climbing out of the hole, I said, “Grandpa thinks it would be a good idea to cover the top of the hole with brush so those monkeys can’t see me from the treetops.”

“That won’t be hard to do,” Papa said, reaching for his pocketknife.

Papa started cutting brush while I carried it over and arranged it over the top of the hole. Knowing how smart that hundred dollar monkey was, I took the shovel and scattered the fresh dirt that had come from the hole. After everything had been taken care of, Papa held the lantern up so we could get a better look at our work.

“I don’t care how smart those monkeys are,” Papa said, “they’ll never spot that hole. Why, if I didn’t know it was there, I’d probably fall in it myself.”

At that moment, no big-game hunter in Africa could have felt more sure of himself than I did.

“Papa,” I said, “I really believe I’ll catch some of those monkeys this time. I really do.”

“I do, too,” Papa said. “What time do you intend to be here in the morning?”

“I’d like to be here before sunup, Papa,” I said.

“In that case,” Papa said, “we’d better be getting home so you can get some sleep.”

B
y this time, I had the monkey-catching fever so bad, I didn’t think I’d get any sleep at all that night. In fact, I couldn’t see much use in even going to bed. But I must have been more tired than I thought I was. I fell asleep and didn’t even dream about monkeys.

It seemed like I had barely closed my eyes when I was awakened by Papa shaking me.

“You’d better get up,” Papa said. “It’s almost daylight and those monkeys will be waking up.”

While I was putting on my clothes, I heard the rattling of pots and pans. I thought it was Papa messing around in the kitchen until I walked in and saw that it was Mama fixing breakfast.

“Aw, Mama,” I said, as I poured water into the wash pan, “you didn’t have to get up this early. Why didn’t you stay in bed and get your rest? I could have done without anything to eat till noon.”

“You can’t hunt monkeys on an empty stomach,” Mama said. “Besides, it doesn’t look like I’ll get any work out of you until you get over this monkey business.”

I finished eating breakfast long before Mama and Papa did, and I started getting my monkey-catching gear together. I hurried to the cellar and got some more apples. Then I rushed to the barn for
another gunny sack. Calling to Rowdy, I picked up my net and headed for the bottoms as fast as I could trot.

I was about halfway through our fields when I met Old Gandy waddling home. If he wasn’t a mess. His feathers were all ruffled and he was smeared with mud from his head to his tail. He seemed to be dog-tired and wasn’t moving any faster than a terrapin could walk.

“Br-r-rother, Gandy,” I said, looking him over, “you must have had a terrible night. It looks like those wild geese down on the river really worked you over.”

Keeping his eye on the net, Gandy honked his disgust and waddled over to one side as if he didn’t care to have a thing to do with me.

Rowdy could see that Gandy was just about all in and he figured it was a good time to aggravate him a little. He bounded over and started barking at him, and for the very first time, Gandy refused to fight back. Honking and flapping his wings, he lit out for home. Rowdy was right after him, nipping at his tail feathers and having the time of his life.

“Aw, come on, Rowdy,” I said, “leave the old fool alone. We’ve got more important things to do than to mess with an old goose.”

It was almost sunup when I arrived at the hole Papa and I had dug. I opened my net and very carefully placed it on the ground with about a foot of the handle and the celluloid rings sticking over the rim of the hole. Then I started covering the handle, loop, and netting with dead leaves and grass.

After everything had been completely covered, I placed three big apples in the center of the hidden loop and then backed off to one side to see what kind of a job I had done.

I was very pleased with my net-hiding skill. “Rowdy,” I said, “I don’t know much about trapping this way, but you’ll have to admit one thing, that net is sure hidden.”

Even if Old Rowdy couldn’t understand some of the things I
did, he always acted like he did anyway. He wagged his tail and seemed to be pleased with everything.

Picking up my sack, I said, “Come on, boy, let’s get in the hole and wait for those monkeys.”

With Rowdy behind me, we got down on our stomachs, squirmed back under the brush, and dropped down in the hole.

Rowdy and I hadn’t been in the hole ten minutes when from somewhere in the bottoms an old woodpecker started banging away on a dead snag. This seemed to wake up everything in the bottoms. Birds started chirping and squirrels began chattering. From across the river, a big old bullfrog started drumming away—brro-o-m, brro-o-m.

“Rowdy,” I whispered, “if those monkeys are around, I don’t think it’ll be long now. Nothing could sleep with all that racket going on. I hope they’re hungry and would like to have a few apples for breakfast.”

When I first heard the noise, I couldn’t make out what it was—although I knew that I had heard it before. It was a slow, scratchy, leaf-rattling noise. Then I noticed that the brush over the top of the hole started shaking.

“Rowdy,” I whispered, “something is messing around with the brush up there. You don’t suppose it could be that smart monkey?”

Then I saw what it was. It was a big, old, black snake as big around as my arm. There was no doubt but what he had just shed his skin because he was as black and shiny as a new stove pipe. On he came, sticking out his tongue and twisting his way through the brush. When he was directly over the top of the hole, he stopped and peered down at Rowdy and me.

I thought, “Now wouldn’t it be something if that snake decided to come down in this hole?”

Things began happening to me. I got as cold all over as I did the time some mean boys threw me in a spring. My skin started
crawling around on me. I stopped breathing and my old heart went absolutely crazy.

“Rowdy,” I said, in a low voice, “I know that old black snake isn’t poison, but he’s still a snake. If he takes a notion to come down in this hole, everything in the bottoms will know that we’re down here because I’ll probably make a lot of racket.”

I wanted to run but I couldn’t. The only way out of that hole was right over the snake and I never did like to run over snakes.

Ordinarily Rowdy wasn’t scared of snakes; that is, if he was out where he could maneuver around a little. But he didn’t seem to like the idea of sharing that hole with the snake any more than I did. He was whimpering and trying his best to crawl under me.

In desperation, I picked up a handful of dirt and threw it in the snake’s face. This scared him. He reared his head back, stuck his tongue out at me about a thousand times, then slithered on through the brush and disappeared.

Letting out a lot of air that had long since grown stale, I breathed a sigh of relief and said, “Rowdy, that was close, wasn’t it? For a second there, I sure thought we’d have to let that snake have this hole.”

The next visitor we had came awfully close to messing up everything. It was a big old hornet. He came buzzing around in the brush and then dropped down in the hole. Gritting my teeth, I closed my eyes, held my breath, and tried to sit as still as a knot on a bur oak tree.

I didn’t know why I was holding my breath because I knew that the old saying of how you could hold your breath and nothing would sting you was pure hogwash. I had tried that before and it hadn’t worked at all.

Rowdy would have absolutely nothing to do with anything that had wings and stingers. I had taken him on several wasp-fighting expeditions and the little red warriors had really worked him over. He knew all too well that you couldn’t hide from them and it was
impossible to outrun them. I had to hold onto his collar and squeeze him up tight to keep him from having a runaway.

The hornet buzzed all around us. I just knew that he was looking me over for a good soft spot to jab his stinger in. Finally, after what seemed like hours, he must have decided that there wasn’t anything in the hole worth stinging and buzzed on his way.

Wiping the sweat from my brow, I said, “Rowdy, I’ve sure learned one thing today. If you want to get everything in these bottoms interested, just dig a hole. That’s all you have to do. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if a skeleton didn’t come jiggling around next.”

Everything went all right for the next thirty minutes, and then I began to have those old doubts again. Maybe Papa was right. Maybe those monkeys had left the country. The more I thought about it, the more convinced I was that my monkey-catching days had come to an end.