Holly had brung back a minnow seine, which was something we had never had before, and Pop and the twins and me made a lot of hauls along the shore and got us a nice mess of pinfish and little crabs for bait and even some shrimp in some grassy spots. Holly had bought some cases of pop, too, and we sunk them where they would stay cool, and if nobody come to fish the next day and buy the soda pop it would go nice when we got thirsty.
The next day was Saturday, and you wouldn't have believed it but a feller drove up before breakfast and wanted to buy some bait and catch a tarpon. He hadn't been fishing ten minutes before two more fellers come. When we got them fixed up, four more cars was pulling off the road. Well, by nine in the morning thirty fellers was lined up on that bridge floating pinfish and crabs out with the tide, and we was really doing fine. The only trouble was them fellers warn't doing fine. Way off down the pass I seen tarpon rolling lazily on top of the water, sort of like Pop turning over in bed and deciding it is too nice a morning to start it off wrong with being active. Not a one of them tarpon come around to take a bait, and the fellers was starting to say this was a place where the fish didn't get hooked but only the fishermen.
I scooped up a bucketful of the little shrimp we had seined the night before, and went out on the bridge and said, "Fellers, there are plenty of tarpon out there but they are just not in the mood yet. So until they get in the mood, maybe you would like to take off them floats and try fishing with these shrimp under the bridge where we got all kinds of snook and sheepshead and mangrove snapper, and there won't be no charge for the shrimp."
They all thought that sounded good, and I fixed them up with shrimp and they begun fishing without floats on the side of the bridge where the tide would carry their bait underneath. It warn't long before they started getting action. The only trouble was they was getting action but no fish. I would see a line jerk down and the feller would give her a yank and up would come a bare hook. Well, maybe they warn't good fishermen but it didn't stand to reason none of them could catch nothing. It made me think of the first day we camped by the bridge, when the twins started out by getting bites and not hooking fish. Thinking of the twins that way made me start thinking of the twins. I run back off the bridge and got in my trunks and swam out under the bridge and there them twins was, the little imps, happy as eels, yanking shrimp off hooks and feeding the shrimp to their fish and making sure nobody caught nothing. I grabbed the twins and drug them ashore and give them a talking to and marched them out onto the bridge and called all them fellers together.
"Fellers," I said, "this is Eddy and this is Teddy, or maybe the other way around because they are twins, and they got something to tell you."
One of the twins said, "Toby says to tell you we been under the bridge stealing bait off the hooks."
"On account of," the other one said, "we didn't want people catching our fish under our bridge."
Then the first one said, "Toby says to tell you we're sorry and I guess we ought to be even if we aren't. But he said to tell you anyway or we couldn't have any soda pop if any is left over. So I hope you don't buy all the soda pop."
The other one said, "We gave our promise to Toby not to steal any more bait off the hooks. Toby said if we would let you catch our fish, he would swim out in the bay later on and round up some more fish for us and chase them back under our bridge."
I was real proud of the twins coming through like that. I had thought them fellers would be mad, but instead they carried on like it was the best joke ever. I offered them back all the money they paid for bait but they wouldn't take it. They went back to fishing under the bridge and things got lively. I never seen snook and snapper and sheepshead go at it like they done. Maybe the free shrimp had got them hankering for more.
For an hour there was a lot of fish caught, and just as we was running out of shrimp, I seen the tarpon moving in. You never know about fish, and maybe the bits of shrimp floating out with the tide and all the lively doings under the bridge got them tarpon excited. I had the fellers change back to floats and pinfish and crabs, and you never seen such fun. You line up thirty fellers on a hundred feet of bridge and let them get a lot of tarpon strikes, and it is like a dozen big circuses trying to show off all at once. There was tarpon flying through the air and fellers on the bridge tumbling over each other and lines getting tangled.
One time it looked like them tarpon was coming out ahead, because two fellers fell off the bridge and one tarpon jumped on the bridge, but the fellers swum ashore and the tarpon flopped back in the water so they come out even. I would like to say that a lot of tarpon got caught but to be honest not a one got caught, because they was big tarpon and you need room to play them fish, and if you are on a bridge and your tarpon thinks he will travel a mile or two you cannot chase him like you could in a charter boat. But them fellers couldn't have had more fun if they had caught tarpon. Anyway what can you do with a tarpon but have your picture took beside him and then go through life with folks looking at the picture and asking which is the fish and thinking they have made a new joke.
That school of tarpon hung around one more day, and we done a lot of business then too, and by the time the tarpon left we had more money than I ever seen before. Holly counted up we made $72.60 selling bait, and $19.25 clear from coffee and sandwiches and soda pop, and $4 I got from helping a feller get his boat from his trailer into the water and back again. All in all that made $95.85. And even after the tarpon left, we had a few people stopping by every day to try the fishing and to buy bait.
We was setting around after dinner one night, with Pop and me talking about how things was going nice, when Holly spoke up and said, "We ought to stop kidding ourselves." She sounded like she does when she is making the twins do lessons, and when you heard that tone you knowed why the twins always done their lessons.
Pop said, "I ain't been kidding nobody so it must be Toby."
"I'm willing to say I'm sorry," I said, "but somebody has to tell me what I am being sorry about."
Holly said, "We're all feeling good about making that money, but is it getting a home built for us? No. We don't have nearly enough money for that. Then we need to put in a line of pilings reaching out maybe fifty feet from shore."
"What do you want the pilings for?" Pop said.
"So we can build a dock on them," Holly said.
"Yes," Pop said, "but what do you want the dock for?"
Holly said, "So we can tie up our rowboats."
"Pop," I said, "don't ask no more questions, because it will turn out she wants the rowboats to take folks out to our forty-five-foot charter boat, and she wants the charter boat so we can take folks to our hotel out on one of them islands."
"Right now I just want rowboats," Holly said. "I want three or four rowboats that we can rent to people. Oh well, maybe I want a couple of outboard motors for them, too. But what I'm getting at is this. If we're going to stay here, we have to go into business, and go into it in the right way. I've been all over Gulf City getting prices on second-hand lumber and on used rowboats and outboard motors and things, and we can do everything for about two thousand dollars."
Pop said, "My cousin Billy had eight hundred dollars once from a load of logs falling on him at the sawmill, but he warn't used to handling money and it run through his fingers in a couple years. So we couldn't borrow it off him."
"I'd be glad to have a load of logs fall on me," I said, "but I don't know of no sawmill around here and anyway I reckon it wouldn't be honest to coax a load of logs to fall on you."
Holly said, "How do business people get money when they need it? They go to a bank and borrow it."
"I never been in a bank," Pop said. "I wouldn't trust them places."
"But this would be a case of asking the bank to trust you," Holly said.
"I never been in a bank either," I said. "What are they like?"
Holly said, "You've been in supermarkets, Toby. A bank is really no different than a supermarket, except that it deals in money instead of
groceries."
"I'm not following you all the way," I said. "In a supermarket you pick up groceries and go to the checkout counter and hand over money for them. It don't seem sensible that in a bank you would pick up money and go to the checkout counter and hand over groceries."
"What you hand over," Holly said, "is a promise to pay the bank back."
Pop said, "I think Toby had better go, because I wouldn't like the government to think I'm taking my business elsewhere even if we are on the outs right at the moment."
I said, "I don't think it's as easy as Holly is letting on."
"I don't think it's easy," Holly said, "but I don't know any other way to get the money we need. They can't shoot you for trying, Toby. Will you do it?"
Well, I said I would, and we fixed it for Holly to take me to a bank in Gulf City the next day, and the rest of the evening we all felt pretty good about it. I reckon we wouldn't have felt that good if we had knowed Holly was wrong about something. Because the fact of the matter is, when you go to a bank to get money, they can shoot you for trying.
7
THE next morning Holly and me drove to Gulf City and parked near a bank. Holly was pretty much on edge, because she has not been in the world like I have been at Fort Dix, and she couldn't bring herself to go in the bank with me. So I went in and looked around for the feller that had the money. It was a real fancy place with marble as good as any you will see in washrooms at the railway station in Trenton when you are going to Fort Dix. Along one side of the room they had three fellers in little cages with bars to keep them from getting out. I didn't know what them fellers was in for, but maybe they was on display as a warning to folks not to get caught breaking no laws. It looked like visiting hours because two or three of their folks was waiting to talk to each of them.
I stood around taking things in for a while so I wouldn't make no mistakes, and once a feller in uniform come up to me and asked could he help, and I said no I was just seeing what was what. For a while I didn't see how you would get to talk to any of the bank people to borrow money, but then a girl went by me and walked up to a little door that was mostly glass and waited there a moment, and the door give a buzz and she walked through
to where most of the bank people was setting. Well, I went to that door and stood, but the door didn't buzz at me, and when I give it a little push it didn't open.
The feller in uniform come back and asked could he help and I said no I had not quite made up my mind. If he had stuck around I would have made up my mind and told him what I wanted to do, but he had some talking to do at the front door with two other fellers in uniform that had just come in. I didn't want to pound on the door and bother folks who was working inside, so I waited for somebody who would know how to make the door buzz and open. Pretty soon along come a thin feller who looked like he had been growed in a cellar, and he gave me a frown and shoved by and went to that little glass door. It buzzed at him and opened and he started through and I slipped right in behind him so I wouldn't bother nobody opening the door just for me.
The feller swung around quick, and said in a squeaky voice, "What do you want?"
"Oh," I said, "I just come for some money, and I reckon I will have to trouble you to show me where to get it."
That had been a real dark cellar he had been growed in, because I mean he was pale. He got took by a kind of spell, too, and opened his mouth and looked like he was trying to yell, only nothing come out. I asked him to try again and leaned close so I could catch what he said. It turned out he was saying, "Help, Help," and it was lucky I was there or nobody would have heard him. There warn't no question he needed help fast so I took a big breath and yelled "Help" for him. Well, you might think them people in the bank didn't have the sense they was born with, because they started diving under desks and screaming, and a big bell started clanging, and that feller looked like he would die right there.
I didn't want him to give out on me and he looked near about ready to fall, so I picked him up and started carrying him out where somebody could do some good for him. Them people finally caught on that something was wrong, and half a dozen fellers run up to us and milled around. The feller in uniform who had asked me earlier could he help warn't offering no help at all now, and was just getting in the way waving a gun around. Somebody was going to get hurt with an excitable feller like that, so when he warn't expecting it I loosed a hand off the feller I was carrying and snaffled that gun off him before he knowed what was happening. Well, I shouldn't have done that, because the other two fellers in uniform who had come in later got all confused, and started waving guns and yelling at everybody to stand back and they would shoot it out with me. Everybody did stand back except that feller I was carrying, and he was the most willing of all to stand back but he couldn't.
For a while not a soul could figure out what to do and it looked like we would stand there all morning, because them other two fellers in uniform couldn't shoot it out with me while I was carrying that feller, and I warn't going to drop a sick man on the floor.
Finally an older feller with white hair come across the clear space around me and said, "I think you've been making a big mistake. Why don't you give me that gun you took from our guard, and let this man go. Then we'll talk things over. Don't you remember me from that tarpon fishing last weekend?"
"I reckon I do remember you," I said. "And I am glad you are here because I never seen folks get so excited. But it is other people making the mistake because I have got a sick man here who needs help."
The feller I was carrying piped up and said, "Mr. Endicott, I hate to say it but I think everybody has been making a mistake."
"Why, the man tried to hold up the bank and you bravely yelled for help," Mr. Endicott said. "I never thought you had it in you, George."
My feller give a weak smile and said, "I didn't think I had it in me, either, Mr. Endicott, and as far as a yell for help is concerned I still have it in me, because I tried to yell and couldn't get out a sound."
"But who did yell for help?" Mr. Endicott said.
"This man who's holding me did the yelling," my feller said. "He heard me get out a little squeak for help and must have thought I was sick, so he let out that bellow that scared everybody. I admit I thought at first he was trying to rob the bank, but now that I have been associated with him so closely for the last ten minutes I don't even think he could rob a baby's piggy bank. And if you could quiet things somewhat, I'm sure I can convince him that I'm fine now and that he can put me down."
I begun to see that things was even more mixed up than I had thought, so I put the feller down and said, "Well, I'm sorry I been such a bother, and I wouldn't rob no bank even if I knowed an honest way to do it. Here is that gun I took off a feller so nobody would get hurt."
Mr. Endicott took the gun and called out to everybody that it had been a big mistake and they should calm down and go about their business. "I know it looked as if this big young man here was robbing the bank and grabbed George here as a hostage," he said, "but he only picked him up because he thought George looked sick and needed help. The reason George looked sick was . . . oh, the hell with it, it gets too confused for me. Just let it go that everything is all right now." He turned to George and me, and said, "Come on in my office so I can get the story straight."
We went in his office, and it turned out that Mr. Endicott was the president of the bank and a right nice feller, although not much of a fisherman as I recollected from the last weekend. We hashed over what had happened, and it turned out George had thought I was trying to rob the bank, which was why he had that spell.
Mr. Endicott said finally, "Well, George, I guess we can't call you a hero after all, which is just as well because it would certainly have been a shock to find you were one."
I said, "I don't think you're being fair to this feller. The worst you can say about him is he warn't very bright to think I wanted to rob the bank. But he did try to yell for help even if nothing much come out, so if I really had bee
n trying to rob the bank he would have been a hero and maybe even a dead hero which is even braver."
"Thank you," George said. "I appreciate that."
"Now all we have to find out," Mr. Endicott said, "is what you did come in for."
I told him how we needed money to build a shack on pilings and to build a dock and get us a few rowboats and maybe two-three old outboard motors, and that it would take two thousand dollars for everything.
Mr. Endicott looked at George and give a little grin and said, "You certainly came to the right person, because George is our loan officer. But this is the first time anybody ever came here and acted as if he wanted to borrow our loan officer instead of a loan."
"I'm real glad to know you are the loan officer," I told George, "because that makes things easy, don't it?"
"I wouldn't be too sure of that," Mr. Endicott said. "I warn you that George is a bit timid, which is a normal trait in loan officers. George, I want to watch you go to work on this problem. Go ahead and take over."
George put the tips of his fingers together in a little tent and peeked inside, and you might think he seen bad news in his little tent because he looked unhappy. I reckon the thing was he warn't used to loans of two thousand dollars, and felt more easy when he was just passing out five dollars here and ten there. "Now then, Mr. Kwimper," he said, "let us start by—"
I said, "You could call me Toby and I could call you George, because while I did not like your looks at first, now I think you are a brave feller and I would like to be friends with you."
George's face come out of that dark cellar it had been growed in and got pink. He looked sort of helplessly at
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