LIFE IN FLORIDA

LIFE IN FLORIDA Page 3

On Chambers Island we got an excellent dinner. After dinner, at low-tide,
we sounded in the channel and found 8 feet of water, with 14 feet in the river
above the bar, and 18 to 29 feet in the channel outside. Two miles out we
found the oyster bars, and such oysters, —-plump, sweet, and juicy. We tonged
them up in five feet of water. I swallowed three dozen. I am like those slim
sea-fish, I don't hold much. I think Mamie swallowed six dozen. I looked at
her; I was mad and jealous now. I just wish I had a mouth like the Amazon
River and a stomach like all outdoors, so I could show her how to appreciate
oysters.

With the utmost sang-froid, she pulled down her apron, made Pladdie hang
a fiddler on her hook and began to fish for sheephead. I kept on culling oysters,
Directly I heard a splashing in the water and a narrow, very thin screech about
two miles long. I knew what it was, but I never looked up, I was still pouting
about being three dozen oysters behind. I simply said, "Dear, you'll find the
cholera mixture in my gun box." Well, my wife is a Methodist, so she didn't
swear, but she said, "See here, you needn't think them oysters are working,
Pladdie lift the fish in."

I took a sly glance at him - about eight pounds — "Dear", I said, "that
is a fine fish, he'll make a splended bake." She looked a whole ant's nest at
me and said, "All you men think of is eating; Pladdie put me on another fiddler."

Well, I sat there and listened at the water splash, and watched sheephead
and drum, until she had taken in eleven fine ones, then I said, "Dear, I declare,
it's wrong to catch so many fish; you'll load the boat at that rate."

She smiled sweetly. She had beaten my morning's trolling, but I had won
a point—1 was going to have baked fish for supper sure!"

We took in our mud-hook, run up our sail and the "Nellie" took us quickly
to Drum Island. This is a long, narrow, shell-ridged, high above tide water
island, and well-shaded by cedars and cabbage palmettos, affording inside its
crescent shape a harbor for fishing shacks, and much resorted to by campers.
Here we pitched our tents for the night. After landing we had an election for
cook and fire-maker, as is frequently customary. On the shore we (Mamie and I)
held a caucus, and after discreetly counting noses, agreed that I should nomi-
nate Tom for cook and Pladdie for fire-maker, etc., she seconding my nominations
on condition that she have the camp rocking chair and be general superintendent;

the terms of all offices to last until their holders skipped. The election was
an entire success - we did not allow the black, Republican votes counted -
to Tom and Pladdie were elected by safe majorities.

While our tent was being stretched, and the fire built, Mamie said she'd
just prospect a little for fish, so fixing her rocker to her notion, under the
shade of a big mangrove, and having Pladdie put a cut bait on her hook, she
threw it out into the channel that runs around the north end of the island.

In less than two minutes she let another of those narrow fish whoops
escape, which satisfies me that all of an oyster feed not taken to the brain
goes into the voice. Rushing to the spot. I found her braced like a greaser
holding a bronco, while her pole was C-shaped, and her line cutting a new
moon in the brine.

"Give me the pole", I said. "Never," she gasped, and turning her back on
the sea, her pole across her shoulder, she pulled landward step by step like a
draymule, dragging by main strength an 18 pound red-fish on to the shore. I
will not forget that exploit while we live. I'll not be allowed to. We let
the black Republicans vote in this matter, and the majority said it was the
finest red-fish ever seen.