Mother Dumplin Sees Red

Based on a story by Jim Ashmore

Pulling a shoebox from under his bed in the attic, a small boy retrieved some fishing line and two hooks. Placing these into the front pocket of his jeans, the boy headed downstairs. A bamboo pole awaited him, stuck in the barrel by the front door of the cabin. The young man was almost free. Almost. A voice from the other room of the house rang out.

“Billy? Billy Dumplin, that you?” It was the boy’s mother.

“Yes’m.” Mother Dumplin required a yes or no to her questions. The ma’am (the m at the end of yes’m) was also assumed. The lady of the house demanded this respect. A simple yeah or nah could get one in trouble. And mother Dumplin could mete out the punishment for insubordination like no one Billy knew.

“You fed the chickens?” Mother Dumplin approached from the other room.

“Yes’m.”

“You chop the firewood?”

“Yes’m.”

“You clean out the henhouse?”

“Yes’m. Put it all on the compost pit.”

“Hmmm.” Mother Dumplin was wondering if there was anything else, any chore she had forgotten. “What’cha gonna do with that bamboo?”

“Thought I’d do some fishin’.”

“Well … you be careful now. Widow Harkins said she spotted a wolf by her barn the other day.”

“Yes’m.” Billy opened the front door to aid his escape. “I’ll bring home a mess of catfish!” Billy was ever the optimist.

“You do that boy, and I’ll fry them up for supper.” Mother Dumplin went back to her work.

It was one of those days. The winter had given up its grip on their little world in the Little Piney Valley. The snow had given way to rain then to sunshine. It had been a cold winter and Billy reveled in the warmth that the sun visiting on his skinny body.

The Dumplin fisherman would make for the Big Piney River, but first a stop was required at the compost pit. The rotting vegetal matter there made an enticing environment for the local worms. It didn’t take much digging before he had some monster nightcrawlers plopped into the pickle jar he used to transport them. Catfish loved worms of all kinds and Billy hunted the largest catfish he could wrestle onto shore.

‘These will do.’ Billy whispered his satisfaction with his bait.

A gentle wind caressed little Billy as he sat beside the great river and baited one of the hooks. Attaching the end of the line to the end of the bamboo pole, the Piney Valley’s predator of everything fishy whipped the pole backward then forward throwing the baited hook at the end of the line close to the center of the flowing water.

Now all there was to do was wait. Billy knew the waiting to be the most important part of the fishing. His Mother had taught him this when he was a very young boy.

The patience required was a good thing to the lad. It gave him time to think. He could think on the best way to trap a rabbit. Or, if the mood arose, he could wonder about the world outside their little valley. He had heard tales. Tales of big cities with large buildings.

Sam Long, a friend of his mother’s, had told of a city named New York where there rose from the ground a hotel that nearly touched the sky. The massive structure had five floors and enough rooms that it could hold the entire village of Possum Creek with room left over for the folks at Bosom End.

What was more, Sam would aver, was the restaurant on the bottom floor of the hotel, the Hog’s Head Tavern. Billy’s mouth would water with the telling of the exotic and delicious dishes the tavern offered. The description of the abalone in oyster sauce smothered in shitake mushrooms was of note to the small child. He didn’t know what any of it meant but it sounded too scrumptious to be able to eat it and survive the experience.

Billy knew he would travel to this New York one day. He would visit the hotel and eat a dinner at the Hog’s Head Tavern there. Not sure exactly how and when he would accomplish the feat, but the boy marveled the same at what wonders would await him there.

“Got him!” Billy pulled tight on the bamboo pole and pulled back setting the hook. After the fight between boy and fish, what emerged from the water below would be a big fat catfish.

÷

Mother Dumplin was in the turnip patch when Billy arrived back home. The lad had a string of fish slung over his back. Billy’s mother stood upright as she welcomed her boy home.

“Watcha got there?”

“Two blue gills and a catfish.” Billy held the stringer high so his mom could see.

“Them’s mighty fine boy. Mighty fine.’

Billy laid his bamboo fishing pole against the side of the cabin. Knocking the dirt from his boots he opened the door of the house to clean his catch inside.

“No, no, no.” Mother Dumplin wagged a finger at her son. “You clean them fish out here. Don’t want no fish guts messing up my kitchen!”

“Yes’m.”

Billy plopped his catch on the large tree stump they used in the yard for all kinds of things. It was useful for cutting wood, drying herbs , and today it would suffice as a fish cleaning station. Reaching into his jeans, the boy fisherman retrieved his pocketknife. Billy went nowhere without the blade.

Wrist deep in the belly of one of the blue gills, Billy’s mind continued in its recollections of Sam, Sam Long. The young man had to smile because his mom’s friend was a bit of a crackup. The man was always telling tales. A particular tale had risen to the front of Billy’s conscience.

Sam told of his friend, Chief Shortcake. It seems it had been a long time since Sam had visited the noble chieftain of the Potowanabe tribe. He was greeted at the doorway flap of the chief’s teepee by the man’s wife, Straw.

Giving the custom greeting Sam asked after his friend. “Is Shortcake here?”

The wife answered. “Shortcake dead, many moons ago. Straw bury Shortcake.”

Billy laughed out loud at the remembrance. The pun on one of his favorite desserts was too good not to laugh.

“What you laughin’ at boy?” Mother Dumplin wanted to get in on the joke.

Before Billy could respond, his laughter died and what replaced it was a deep trembling fear. It was a fear born of the knowledge of the woods. There at the edge of the woods, right in front of the turnip patch was a massive wild boar.

Mother Dumplin read the signs of profound trepidation on her son’s face. Turning to see what the boy was seeing, she saw the boar. It was 700 pounds of razor sharp tusks and hatred. The beast’s eyes burned red with the rage that it harbored in its heart. It huffed and snorted its disdain of everything.

Ostensibly the animal had followed Billy home from the river, the smell of fresh fish having wafted through the woods. What Mother Dumplin knew, knew in her bones, was that the demon beast from Satan’s abyss would charge. It would charge and let nothing get in its way of a fish feast.

Now, a wild boar is a very dangerous thing to have in one’s turnip patch, but nothing, nothing, in this world of ours is as dangerous as a mother. Any mother. A mother that sees her children in danger. That mother is not to be trifled with. And Mother Dumplin was a mother of rare talents. A mother capable of visiting the fires of hell on any soul that dared to even look at her son the wrong way.

The boar was unaware of this, of course, and what was more, the boar was unaware that the mother of the boy cleaning the fish always kept a jar of pepper in her apron pocket. It was this jar of pepper that even now Mother Dumplin was pouring into the fold she had fashioned in her apron. The woman lifted the ends of the apron skirt and waited. It wouldn’t be long now.

The boar charged, just as the mother had known, and just as he was about to mow the older lady down, he met with a cloud of pepper that had been thrown free from the fold in the apron. Mid-snort the beast inhaled the cloud through its snout down its throat an into its lungs.

The pig from hell stopped dead in its tracks. Coughing with all its strength the animal tried and tried to coax the fiery pepper from its body but to little avail. Heaving and heaving in convulsion, the beast turned and ran back to the relative safety of the forest. One could hear it squealing in pain as it beat a hasty retreat.

Billy sighed his relief. “That was close.”

Mother Dumplin shrugged her shoulders. “He didn’t know who he was dealing with.” Smiling at her own relief, her knees a little shaky, Billy’s mom furthered, “Let’s get those fish frying. I’ve got a whole mess of turnip greens here.”

“Yes’m.”

Peace returned to their homestead. Life was good in Little Piney Valley.