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catfish!” said Old Mickey Malarkey.
    â€œFilled the boat, Mickey?” said one farmer who was lying on his back with his arms out and his legs apart.
    â€œWell, filled a
tub
and a couple of buckets.” “A
tub
and a couple of buckets, Mickey?” said another farmer, lying on his stomach with his face on his arm.
    â€œO.K., a
tub
then. A
tub full
,” said Mickey.
    â€œA
tub full
, Mickey?” another farmer said, steam rising from him.
    â€œWell, it was
half
full,” said Mickey.
    â€œ
Half
full, Mickey?” another farmer said, pouring water over his head to cool off.
    â€œWell, it was dark. But there were a
lot
of fish in there.”
    â€œA
lot
of fish, Mickey?” said the biggest farmer of them all.
    â€œO.K.
Some
fish.
Some
.”
    â€œ
Some
fish, Mickey?” said O’Driscoll.
    â€œWell, say, half a
dozen
or so.”
    â€œOr
so
, Mickey?” said the first farmer.
    â€œO.K. Two. Two nice big catfish.”
    â€œTwo, Mickey?” said farmer number two.
    â€œAll right. One. One
huge
catfish. The biggest catfish I ever saw. Huge.”
    â€œHuge, Mickey?” said the wet farmer.
    â€œA good size, a fair-sized fish.”
    â€œFair size, Mickey?” said O’Driscoll.
    â€œO.K. It was a small one. They weren’t biting, it’s the moon or something. I threw it back.”
    â€œDid you catch
any
fish Mickey?” I felt like saying, but the singing farmer beat me to it.
    â€œNo! I didn’t catch one damn fish. Are you satisfied?” “Did you even go fishing, Mickey?” somebody finally said.
    â€œNo! I didn’t go fishing. I hate fishing. And I hate catfish. They’re ugly and they scare me. As a matter of fact I’ve heard tell that they’re poison. The Devil put them there in the river!”
    â€œYou’re an awful liar, Mickey Malarkey. An awful liar!”
    Just then Prootoo came along and announced that we were going to tear down the covered bridge as soon as one lane of the new bridge was laid.
    It was in the contract.
    It couldn’t be helped.
    The way she said that it couldn’t be helped, you could tell she was sort of sorry.
    But business was business.

Boy Appointed King of Mushrat Creek!
    I WAS LEARNING a lot on my new job.
    One of the first things I learned was that I wasn’t going to earn forty-four dollars a week because I wasn’t going to be able to work every day.
    When I ran out of nails to pull, Prootoo would come up and say, “You’re laid off. Come back tomorrow. We might ‘ave some more cloux for you!” She would laugh when she said that. Then, I noticed that she was calling me “Cloux,” which is the French word for nail. But it wasn’t in a mean way.
    â€œHey, Cloux! You’re laid off! Come back tomorrow. See if dere’s any cloux for you!” I was the only one on the job she joked with.
    Mrs. O’Driscoll said she didn’t have any kids of her own and she liked me because I was adopted.
    â€œHow did she know I was adopted?” I asked Mrs. O’Driscoll.
    â€œWhy I told her, of course,” said Mrs. O’Driscoll out of the corner of her mouth.
    Another thing I learned was about whistling. One of the smaller farmers was helping with the pulling of the nails one day. Actually, he was banging the dried cement off the wood so I could get at the nails. He was whistling a song. He was whistling “I been workin’ on the railroad.” Just to be friendly, I started whistling the same song. Whistling “I been workin’ on the railroad” right along with him. He stopped whistling and stopped banging the cement off his board and stared at me.
    â€œYou don’t whistle the same song at the same time another person is whistling the song. Don’t you know that?”
    I apologized. I didn’t know that.
    You can learn a lot while you’re building a bridge.
    On one of my laid-off