catch em? ! I told him, in short, and he asked me what I was going 
to do with them. I told him 1 intended to sell them, and the farmer 
then asked what I would take for one of them and I told him all I 
could get. He immediately wanted to make a bargain. He said, “I 
have got lots of bacon and I will give you one pound of bacon for 
every pound of fish. How does that strike you?” I agreed and we 
dragged the fish to the farmer’s house, which was only a short dis¬ 
tance. We weighed the fish in his smokehouse. It weighed 82 pounds. 
The farmer drew a long breath, looked up at his bacon and hack at 
the fish, and said, “Don’t like to break my word, but that will take 
all the bacon which I have, but,” says he, “I will give you one of 
these large midlins for him.” I told the farmer that would be all 
right, so he helped me carry the midlin of meat to my boat, and I was 
again rowung down the Arkansas River. 
This midlin of meat lay on the bow of my boat in the hot sun 
until I reached southeast Arkansas. 
You readers remember the little incident of the conductor put¬ 
ting me off the train at Russellville as I was going to the Indian Ter¬ 
ritory. My stay there had been short but during that time I had 
become acquainted w T ith a fiddler by the name of Tison. Tison’s 
eyes did not match—one was dark blue and the other a pale blue. 
By chance I had met Tison at a country dance near Russellville on 
Saturday night before I left for Fort Smith on Monday. Tison being 
a fiddler and me with an “itching” heel, always ready to dance, we 
soon became great cronies. As I drifted down the river I thought of 
Tison, wondering if we would ever meet again. One evening just 
before night I landed my boat with the view of going to a farmhouse 
near by to get a jug of water. As I walked toward the house T ob¬ 
served a couple of men coming toward me. I stopped along the road¬ 
side and wrnited until they drew near and lo, who should it be but 
old Tison. We joyously greeted each other and asked the whvfor 
of our meeting at this place. He said he was down there picking 
cotton, and he added, “I have my fiddle with me and I am sure glad 
to meet you.” Then he told me how often he had thought of me 
since our brief acquaintance and how he had wondered if the redskins 
had got me, then he added brightly, “Say, the field where we are 
picking cotton is lined with watermelons; what say you if we take 
our cotton sacks and bring down two sacks of melons? We can also 
cook one of those big fish tonight and have a feast.” That would be 
fine, I thought, and off went Tison and his friend after the melons 
and his fiddle and I proceeded toward the farmhouse for a jug of 
water. 
We met about forty yards below my boat, where there was lots 
of driftwood to make a camp-fire. A fire was started and while Tison 
and his friend were dressing the catfish, which weighed about 40 
pounds, I was busy making coffee and frying flapjacks so we could 
fry the fish in the pan, which was the only cooking vessel I had except 
the coffee pot. Supper was soon under way and Tison and his friend 
would eat fish as fast as I could fry them. I didn’t care for the fish. 
— 43 — 
