Hi, this is Bud from Calders Draw. Momma made some of the best cooter soup with dumplin's I have ever had. The cooters were just the right size for soup. Cooter are sure hard to catch. And once you catch them you can't just let them run off into the crick again, or you have to catch them again. Before I was an expert at catchin' cooter I would try to tie them with string to keep them from escapin' back into the crick. That didn't work though. They would just snap the string in two and run back to the crick.
I figured out that if you held them bottom side up they would stop tryin' to get into the water and just kinda go to sleep. Then you could put them on a rock so their shell wouldn't slide off and they would wait for you to ketch some of their relatives and take them all home to make soup.
I wasn't sure I could catch any at all after the skinny, ugly Trask sisters thrashed around in the crick, and raised such a ruckus. But finally I had enough for a good batch of soup.
That is all behind me though. Today I am goin' to cut wood for Lula May's momma. I sure hope Lula May can sneak off into the woods to see me.
Cuttin' wood isn't as easy as some would think. If it was, just anybody could cut wood. When you cut wood you have to think about some things first...like you have to be where there are trees. Bein' where there are trees makes it a lot easier to cut wood. And you have to make sure you don't chop down a tree that might fall on your head, or a house, or the pig pen, or the outhouse, or the shine cooker.
Bad things can happen if you drop a tree smack in the middle of the shine cooker.
So I am always careful to cut wood in the woods and to not drop the trees on something important.
I was all excited when I got to Lula May's house. Their house is kinda like ours but it has more rocks holdin' it up than our house does. When I got to the yard I hollared like I had been told to do. You don't wanna catch someone in the outhouse with their drawers down, so you always holler. It is the neighborly thing to do.
When momma Cratchet came out on the porch I could hear the floor boards creakin' and groanin'. I think that is the most wonderful sound a woman can make when she walks around the house. You can always tell where Momma is by where the floors are creakin'.
And right behind Momma Cratchet was Lula May my sweetheart.
Lula May was peekin' around her momma to see me. The two of them standin' on the porch together was makin' the floor boards creak and groan up a storm.
I told Momma Cratchet I was there to cut them a big passel of wood for cookin'. She looks at me kinda close and wants to know where I was goin' to cut wood, cause she didn't want anything to fall on any of her kin who might be runnin' in them parts.
I told her she wasn't just talkin' to any dummy. I was gonna cut wood in the woods, and if she would tell me where the shine cooker was, well then I would just go in the other direction to cut her kitchen wood.
She made a sound like a happy pig sow gruntin' and pointed down the hill toward the shine cooker. I headed toward the woods makin' sure to go the other direction. As I was headin' out, she hollared at me to cut wood until the end of the porch was full and that she would trade a big goose berry pie and a fresh possum for the wood cuttin'.
And that Lula May would be along later to bring me some lunch!
I was so excited I almost dropped a tree smack on my head.
About lunch time I heard Lula May crashin' through the woods. I was sure happy to see my sweetheart rollin' down the hill toward me. She musta stumped her toe and fell down. And she just come head over heels down through the dogwood and redbud trees. They was small trees and hadn't a chance of slowin' her down. So I just naturally scooped her up in my arms as she was rollin' by.
She seemed a little unsteady so I held her for a minute. I picked some leaves from her hair, and pulled a fuzzy caterpillar off her eyebrow. After a while she seemed better, but I didn't want to turn her lose. Once I had got a good hold of her it just seemed a waste to let go.
Lula May musta felt the same way cause she put her arms around my neck and gave me a big kiss. Well that was the best kiss I had ever had! And I gave her a big kiss back. And then my man thing wakes up!
Lula May and I was tradin' spit and slobber fast and furious there until my man thing starts to poke her.
She gives out a shriek and runs over behind a big black gum tree. I was some startled myself when she jumps out of my arms and tries to hide. But I could see her pokin' out on both sides of the tree. That tree wasn't more than 3 feet across, and couldn't a hid Lula May if it wanted to.
She stuck her head around one side of the tree to look at me and her cute behind was stickin' out the other side of the tree at the same time.
"What was that pokin' me?" she says.
"That was only my man thing." I said. "I didn't mean for it to get so big. It is just that you are so beautiful and I have loved you forever! I couldn't stop it getting' big."
Lula May got a soft look in her eyes and crept back around the tree.
She looked down at my man thing bump, and her eyes lost the soft look and got real big. She kept lookin' at my man thing bump and I could see she was thinkin'. An then she kinda took a deep breath and stood up straight. I could tell she was gonna take matters into her own hands.
