Up On the Creek

Tom Perry got the buggy ready and then walked down along the creek bank to where a trickling stream meandered down hill through a wild brushy spot.  He always went here when he wanted to be alone.  He had discovered this little hideaway when he was about ten years old and it had always been, in his eyes, his!  This spot was up past the field into a dark, tree lined area where, as far as he knew, no one else had been, or at least, hadn’t been as far back as he could remember. Tom had long ago made a small dam of stone and tree branches so there was a little pool of clear, cold water not far from where the water came out of the ground from the spring.  He sat and watched the little ripples of water as they played over the stones he had placed in the pool.  There was a bed of moss, which he sometimes lay on and watched the lazy clouds creep across the sky.  In the early spring, the tree branches were like skeletons waving in the constant breeze.  Later, as the leaves began to develop, it became a canopy of beauty, where the birds came to sing and to nest.  He was tired today as he came to his ‘spot,’ and he lay down and soon dropped off to sleep.

He awoke with a start!

"Jessie!  What are you doing?  Get your hands out of my britches!  You put that dress back on right now or I’ll tell Charlie what you’re doing and he’ll make you walk all the way back to Pennsylvania.  Go on now!  You best do as I say!

A tiny breeze blew across the pool and a ripple played tag with a leaf.  White clouds moved across the sky and the first blossoms of redbud had appeared.  It was a perfect spring day.  At least it was until Jessie showed up.

“Tom Perry, don’cha be like all them other young fellers.  You boys all laugh and talk about how you want it and then you’re all afraid of it when it’s there.  C’mon Tom Perry.  Let little Jessie show you how it is to be loved.”

Tom looked at the nearly unclothed young woman and couldn’t help but wonder what pleasures she could show him.  “Go on now, woman.  Do as I say.  Don’t you ever forget you’re married to my brother Charlie, and I don’t take kindly to how you’re acting.”

Jessie, pouting, picked up her flour sack dress and wrapped it around her.  She had been rounding up some cows, which had strayed off into a wild onion patch, and had seen Tom  walk up alongside the creek bank.  She had followed and watched him from a clump of bushes just across the spring.  She knew Charlie had gone to Carter and a big smile came to her face as she carefully walked over to where Tom was napping.  Quietly slipping up on him, she had quietly dropped her dress to the ground.

“You’re a ‘fraidy cat, Tom Perry.  You’re a ‘fraidy cat.”  She muttered out loud as she dressed.  “Fraidy cat, Tom!  ‘Fraidy cat, Tom!”  She sang as she walked out into the field heading toward the barn.

“Whew!  I guess this place isn’t as secret as I supposed.” Tom  remarked to himself.  He stripped off his clothes and sat down in ‘his’ little pool of water to cool off.

Calming down, he recalled Charlie bringing Jessie home from Pennsylvania about three years ago.  She was about three years older than Tom  and she surely was a pretty thing.

While Tom  sat in the water remembering how Jessie looked as she took off her dress, he remembered the day she and Charlie got married.  Ma had made her a dress.  She was a beautiful woman, with her red hair streaming down her back and some freckles on her nose and cheeks.  When they left the church building, some of the younger kids had teased them with a little song, which Ma had taught them.  "Going up McGlone Creek, going in a whirl.  Going up McGlone Creek to get hissef’ a girl.  Wedding on McGlone Creek, very well known.  Good lookin’ Jessie and Charlie McGlone.

Tom Perry laughed as he remembered those days.  Standing up, he dried himself with his old flour sack shirt, carefully looking around to see if Jessie might be hiding in the bushes.

He sat back down on the moss-covered ground and remembered the days since Jessie had arrived.

When Tom Perry was about sixteen, Jessie had begun to pester him.  She would show up in places where he was working alone and would tease him about his size and how she could make him enjoy work even more.  Charlie never seemed to notice and Tom did his best to stay away from her.  However, she was getting more and more desirable to him but he always remembered Charlie, and nothing happened except in his thoughts.