Notwithstanding that he was a
sentinel he could never look ahead. And when Keekie Joe smoked several
of his father's cigarettes on the way home, it never occurred to him
that he would have to remain away from home through supper time, and
until his father had retired for the night.
Thus it was that at nine o'clock or thereabouts, Keekie Joe realized
that he was hungry and that four cigarettes stood between him and home,
effectually barring the way. He measured the licking that he would get
against the supper that he would get, and he decided to go fishing. No
doubt his choice was well considered for the supper that he would get
might not be a good one whereas the licking that he would get would be
nothing short of magnificent.
Keekie Joe had not the slightest idea how to cook a fish and he could
not think so far ahead as that. But food he must have. So he had dug
some worms and put them in one of his trick cans and then proceeded to
untangle the line. Having secured an unknotted length of five or six
feet he equipped this with a fish-hook of his own manufacture and
sallied forth toward the river. He was not only hungry, but sleepy,
and it never occurred to him that this was the exorbitant price of four
cigarettes.
Hunger and sleep vied with each other in the shuffling body of Keekie
Joe as he crossed Main Street and cut across the fields toward the
marshes.
Down by the river was a little shanty in which was a mass of fishing
seine.
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