The sacks was tied to the shore with ropes, and me and Terry went down there to start pulling them in. The walnuts still had enough green in them they could be used downriver to stun more fish, so we was supposed to save them. We got hold of a rope and started pulling, but it was real heavy and we couldn’t do it.

“We’ll be there d’rectly to help out,” Daddy called from the boat.

“I think we should cut this one loose,” Terry said to me. “No use straining our guts out.”

“I don’t quit that easy,” I said, and looked up to see what was going on with the boat. It had a hole in the bottom, so Daddy and Uncle Gene couldn’t stay out long. Uncle Gene had to bail it out with a coffee can while Daddy paddled the boat back to the bank. When they had it pulled out of the water, they came over to help us.

“Damn,” Daddy said, “either them walnuts has got heavy as a Ford or I’ve gotten weak.”

“You’ve gotten weak,” Uncle Gene said. “You ain’t the man you once was. You ain’t the strapping example of prime manhood I am.”

Daddy grinned at him. “Hell, you’re older than me.”

“Yeah,” said Uncle Gene, “but I’ve took care of myself.”

Daddy let out with a hooting sound, said, “Ha!”

Uncle Gene was fat as a hog, but without the personality. Still, he was a big man in height and had broad shoulders and arms about the size of a horse’s neck. Daddy didn’t even look kin to him. He was a skinny peckerwood with a potbelly, and if you ever saw him without a cap it was cause it had rotted off his head. He and Uncle Gene had about eighteen teeth between them, and Daddy had most of them. Mama said it was because they didn’t brush their teeth enough and they chewed tobacco. There were times when I looked at their sunken faces and was reminded of an old pumpkin rotting in the field. I know it’s a sad thing to be so repulsed by your own kin, but there you have it, straight out and in the open.