Read Online The Adventures of Jack and Billy Joe by A. Jeff Tisdale - Free Book Online Page B

until we have to be at the generator.”
    They walked the fifty yards or so to the clay bank overlooking the river and looked down. It was a high bank, about thirty feet above the water.
    The river itself appeared to be at a normal level, not too high and not too low. At this point, the river was more narrow than usual so the water flowed fairly swiftly, but at no point was the Leaf a fast-moving river at its normal level. As a matter of fact, the boys camping here swam every day and had no problem swimming against the current.
    The two boys walked down the clay steps that earlier camping groups had hewn into the clay bank to get to the water’s edge.
    “We’re not far from where Mr. Ezell docks his boat,” Jack pointed out. “Maybe a mile up river.”
    “Yeah,” Billy Joe agreed. “But you know Mr. Jackson won’t let us go get it and if we did, he’d make us haul other boys.”
    “Maybe next week our mommas will let us camp out on the river and we can run some trotlines,” Jack speculated.
    “Nah, they won’t unless we can get our daddies to ask them for us,” Billy Joe said. “We better go put on our bathing suits if we’re gonna make it to the generator detail on time.”
    The generator was the camp’s source of power—for lights only—and was run by the river itself. The camp’s builders had used a pile driver to sink two large poles into the bottom of the river and had run guy wires from the tops of the poles to the base of trees on both sides of the river to hold them steady and straight up. The generator was on a moving contraption between the poles and could be lowered to water level by a windlass. The windlass had a crank on both sides so four boys could operate it at one time, two on each side.
    The generator, of course, never touched the water. It was on a shaft with a cog on one end that meshed with a cog on the water wheel. The water wheel floated up and down on two fifty-five-gallon drums so that only its paddle fins touched the water no matter what the river level.
    The job of the generator detail was to swim out to the poles, climb them using the climbing spikes that had been driven into each pole and lower the generator until the cogs meshed and the generator started to turn.
    Any time the generator was on the lights would be on. The lights furnished the proper load for the generator output.
    Jack and Billy Joe liked this detail since it involved swimming in the river, and that was the only time they were allowed to dive off the generator tower.
    Mr. Ward was in charge of this detail and explained each part of the operation to the boys as they went along.
    The boys all liked Mr. Ward. He treated them as if they could understand what he was saying. Not like some adults who acted as if boys were not smart enough to understand so there was no use taking the time to explain.
    The generator was lowered and meshed, and the lights came on all over the camp.
    The boys cheered and dived off the generator tower. Mr. Ward let them climb back up and do it a couple more times.
    “Let’s go have some lunch, boys,” Mr. Ward said as they walked back toward the shelter.
    On one of the tables in the shelter, another detail had set out loaves of bread, peanut butter, pimiento cheese and pints of milk in a tub of ice. The boys made sandwiches and drank milk until each had had enough.
    It wasn’t necessary to demand that the boys take an after-lunch nap. They took their blankets, as did the men, and found a shady place under a tree.
    Jack and Billy Joe were among the first ones up.
    “What we gonna do?” Jack asked.
    “We still got our bathing suits on so let’s go swimming.”
    “We’re not supposed to without one of the men being there,” Billy Joe said.
    “Yeah, I forgot,” Jack said, being used to making his own decisions in the woods. “Well, let’s just walk down there and look. That can’t hurt.”
    They walked over to the edge of the clay bank and looked down to the river. There were