A Shrimpin’ and a Dippin’: Helpin' Out

As the Good Book says, “All good things come to those who wait,” least ways I think it does. It was one of Pa’s favorite sayings, especially when any of us young’uns asked fer something. And since he was always a reading The Book and a spoutin’ off words from it, I figure it must a come from there.

After hearing all them stories about that city feller and his boatin’ adventures, I was of a mind to try my hand at the same thing. Well, not exactly the same thing, not wantin’ to deal with Billy Bob’s two boys, him still being off into the boar and beer business instead of the boat business, I was a lookin’ for some fellar needin’ a boatin’ buddy, so to speak. I may be from upriver, all the way upriver, but that don’t mean I don’t know a thing or two about them down river city feller boys and their ways.

Which was why, early the next mornin’ I was down at Billy Bob’s Boat and Bait, pretending to be one of them onlooker types. What I was a really doin’ was a waitin’ for one of them fellars that don’t know a bit about what he was doin’ to come in a lookin fer some help. Not that I knew anything about this fishin’ and shrimpin’, but even if I didn’t, two heads is always better than one, especially if one of ‘em is mine. :)

It took a while, but at last I was rewarded, provin’ that what Pa said was surely right. I’d been a hopin’ that whoever it was would at least know which end of the boat was the starboard and which was the port, I havin’ been studying up on nautical terms to impress whatever nautilus was lookin’ for help. Then this boat comes up the channel, and as it gets near the dock, the feller at the helm starts to turn, only it's the rearward end of the boat that's a comin’ towards the dock, with him a spinnin’ that wheel like a madman and nothin’ happening except the back corner just keeps getting’ closer to the dock at a rate of speed that even I could tell weren’t normal.

All of a sudden that feller guns the engine like some aireoplane a takin’ off, and that boat hits the dock like it was shot out of a cannon. That feller looses his balance, which turns out to be a good thing, as he hits that lever he was a pullin’ on and knocks it upright, which stops the roar of the engine, and all that water a thrashing around behind that boat. That was when I got a good look at him, immediately havin' him deadeye figured for a city feller.

He goes inside the Boat and Bait, then comes out with Dumber followed by Dumb. From what I understood from the RV Park fellars, this meant that that city feller weren’t just in trouble, he was in a heap of trouble as he was about to get a double dose of wrong information. I wasn’t privy to what he was a trying to git them boys to do, but what with all the gyratin’ arms and shruggin’ of shoulders, I was a believing he had already passed the sum total of Dumb and Dumber's knowledge of what he was askin’.