Read Online Nathan Coulter by Wendell Berry - Free Book Online

and Uncle Burley pulled the wagon off the road. We took the buckets and made a line between the pond and the wagon and filled the barrels with water. Then we drove on into the grounds.
    The picnic ground was a fifty-acre field, and when we drove through the gate we could see automobiles parked everywhere, looking hot and shiny with the sun baking down on them. In the center of the field was a grove of tall oaks; people stood under them talking and laughing. Here and there a woman sat by herself in the shade beside a dinner basket. A carnival was set up outside the grove, the tents of the side shows in a double line, facing each other across a kind of street like the houses of a
town. At one end of the carnival was a Ferris wheel, and at the other end was the dance hall where the Odd Fellows held a dance on the night of the Fourth.
    Uncle Burley drove around the carnival and pulled in by the dance hall on the far end of the rows of tents. We unloaded the tank and set it on the ground with the long side parallel to the street of the carnival, about twenty-five feet from the tent next to us. That tent was a shooting gallery, and we could hear the rifles cracking and a bell ringing when somebody hit a bull’s-eye. When we got the tank leveled to suit Uncle Burley we filled it with water from the barrels. We found five good-sized rocks and tied pieces of fishing line to them, and then used them to anchor the ducks in the tank of water. Uncle Burley scratched a line in the dirt in front of the tank and looped the embroidery hoops over his hand.
    Brother and I drove the wagon out of the way and hitched the mules to a tree. When we came back Uncle Burley was walking up and down in front of the tank, twirling the hoops around his finger. Before long a big pimply-faced boy came over from the shooting gallery and looked at the ducks. He was wearing a little hat that he’d won at one of the carnival booths, with a red felt ribbon that said I’M HOT STUFF pinned to the top of it.
    Uncle Burley twirled the hoops. “Boy, do you think you can ring one of them ducks?”
    â€œHell yes,” the boy said. “How much?”
    â€œThree rings for a dime.”
    The boy looked at the ducks and then at the hoops in Uncle Burley’s hand. “What do I get if I ring one?”
    â€œFive dollars cash money, plus the satisfaction of it.”
    The boy handed Uncle Burley a dime and took the hoops. He aimed a long time before he made a throw, and I was afraid he was going to win on the first try. But when the duck saw the hoop coming she stuck her head under the water. He made three tries and every time the duck ducked her head.
    â€œTakes a lot of skill,” Uncle Burley said.
    â€œHell,” the boy said. He paid another dime and tried it again. He spent seventy cents standing there throwing those embroidery hoops at the
ducks, throwing at whichever duck wasn’t looking at him. But they always ducked in time. The boy gave up finally and went away.
    â€œThat’s why they call a duck a duck,” Uncle Burley told us.
    A fat man in a wrinkled brown suit, who’d been watching the boy, staggered up to Uncle Burley. “Give me a try on them ducks.”
    Uncle Burley looked him up and down and shook his head. “Fellow, don’t you reckon you’re too drunk to throw straight?”
    The man pointed his finger at Uncle Burley. “You’re a liar if you say I’m drunk. I can ring one of them ducks left-handed.”
    â€œI’m willing to bet you can’t ring one right-handed,” Uncle Burley said.
    The man took two dollars out of his pocket and laid them on the ground.
    Uncle Burley laid two more on top of them. “Three rings for a dime,” he said.
    The man had the same luck the boy had, only he spent a dollar. After the first ten throws he got mad and started throwing hard, trying to kill the ducks. He never even hit the tank after that. The more he missed the