follow the mind of a boy

Jeff had still never caught the big trout.

Down the hill from the house, across the small valley floor there was a crick full of trout. The challenge was, cutting across the valley meant crossing the neighbor's fields.

Old man Bastendorf didn't like Jeff fishing his crick. He would say that strangers riled up his cows and especially the stud bull, but Jeff figgered the old man wanted all the trout for himself, especially the Big One.

The bull was in the upper fields today, as were Old Man Bastendorf and his boys, so the coast was clear. Jeff kicked over a dried cow pie and put a handful of long earthworms in his shirt pocket.

It was that fragrant part of springtime when the big willow on the bank was flowering in its odd way. All those open yellow stamens, just exposed like that. Jeff looked differently at the willow now, since learning about plant sex recently in Miss Baker's 3rd grade class. He had a crush on her.

His mind returning to fishing, Jeff donned his mother's yellow blouse as camouflage. Of course he waited until he crossed the heavy cow bridge and was just about to sneak under the edge of the sticky branches.

The big trout had lived there for years. At the height of summer it seemed all the fish retreated to the shadow under the bridge or the shady tree pool since it was one of the few cool portions of the crick. Jeff just wanted the Big One.

Jeff hooked up a worm and slung it about 15 feet, to the edge of the willow branches. That fat worm drifted lazily until caught up in the main flow. Speeding up, it headed right by the undercut bank where the Big One lurked...