Uncle Sagamore and His Girls by Charles Williams Read Free Book Online Page B

Finley run right out in his nightshirt and grabbed a pinch-bar and started tearing down the hen-house to get boards to build the ark with. He’d been at it ever since, whenever he could get boards, and the ark was about the size of a medium house trailer now, even though it was full of holes and didn’t look much like it would float. He’s Aunt Bessie’s brother, and he’s bald-headed except for a fuzz of white hair around his ears.
    We didn’t have any luck catching the gopher, so we went down in the bottom to chase rabbits, and it was after sundown when we got back. Pop and Uncle Sagamore was still sort of quiet while they fried the baloney and we had supper. I fed Sig Freed some baloney, and after a while me and Pop spread out our bedrolls and turned in. Uncle Sagamore sleeps in the front bedroom that’s next to the living room, and Uncle Finley in the back one next to the kitchen. Sig Freed curls up next to me.
    There wasn’t any moon, and I could see the end of Pop’s cigar glowing in the dark. Off in the river bottom that bird was going, “ Six-furlongs-in-one-eleven, six-furlongs-in-one-eleven, ” over and over, the way he does, and right in the middle of thinking what a lot of fun it was living on a farm I went to sleep. Then the next thing I knew I was wide awake and there was an awful racket going on.
    It was Sig Freed. He’s got a real deep bark for such a small dog, and he must have let out a roar with his nose against my ear. He jumped across me in the dark, and from the string of cuss words it sounded like he landed right in Pop’s face. Then he shot off the porch and up the side of the hill toward the sand road just barking up a storm. Pop was cussing a blue streak and trying to get untangled from the bedclothes, and just then Uncle Finley come tearing out the front door in his nightshirt yelling, “She’s a-comin’! Armageddon’s a-comin’!”
    He slammed into Pop and they both fell down. Pop stopped cussing Sig Freed and started cussing Uncle Finley. They got untangled from each other, and Uncle Finley jumped off the porch and tore around the side of the house still whooping and hollering. “Everbody’s goin’ to drownd! She’s a frawg-strangler!”
    “Goddamned old coot, it ain’t rainin’,” Pop says, real bitter, and got up. I could still hear Sig Freed going up the hill, barking to beat the band. I looked around then, and Uncle Sagamore was standing just outside the door with his shotgun in the crook of his arm. I never been able to figure out how he does that. You don’t hear him move or anything, but all of a sudden he’s just there.
    He was standing real still, listening, and Pop stopped cussing to listen too. Sig Freed sounded like he was almost up to the sand road now. And then all of a sudden he quit barking and let out a yelp like something had bit him. He went “Yip! Yip! Yip!” and you could tell he was coming back this way as fast as he could run. Uncle Sagamore stepped down off the porch with the shotgun, moving fast and silent like an Indian, but before he’d got more than a few steps we heard a car start up by the gate. He come back.
    “What do you reckon it was?” I asked.
    He didn’t say anything. Neither did Pop. Just then Sig Freed come running back into the yard and up the steps. I grabbed him, and he licked my face. He didn’t seem to be hurt. Whoever it was in the car must have throwed something at him and scared him, or kicked at him.
    “Who do you reckon would be prowlin’ around up there this time of night?” Pop asked.
    Uncle Sagamore hitched up the other gallus of his overalls, but all he said was, “Hmmm.” And then all of a sudden there was an awful hammering around behind the house and a screech like nails being pulled. We all run around that way, and here was Uncle Finley. He was still barefooted and in his nightshirt, but he’d lit a lantern and had a pinch bar and was tearing a plank off the back wall next to the kitchen door. The