Harris and me : a summer remembered by Gary Paulsen Page A

seeking new blame. "I'm not taking the blame for the shotgun."
    "It ain't like we got a choice, is it?"
    "I've got a choice."
    "It's this way." Harris gave me a speculative look. "If you got a choice, I've got a choice, too."
    "What do you mean?"
    "If you make a choice not to take the blame, I

    might make a choice to tell about them pictures you got in the box under the bed."
    "You snake! You've been in my stuff."
    He shrugged. "Not so's you'd notice. I just looked at 'em once. Well, maybe more than once. It's kind of fun to look at 'em. Makes my business feel funny and I start thinking about Shirley Everson ..."
    He had me. I understood that but I still fought a bit. "I ever catch you in that box again I'll beat the tar out of you." It was a hollow threat and he knew it but he had the decency to give it to me.
    "I won't. And don't worry. Glennis ain't going to hit you and even if she does, it won't be like she'd hit me."
    The irony was that I lied the best I could, looked them all straight in the face, told them how I found the shotgun and took it out and found a shell in the cabinet (Harris coached me) and loaded it and felt just awful about it and Glennis patted me on the head and turned and hit Harris so hard he almost somersaulted out of the kitchen.
    "What was that for?" Harris asked, staggering back into the room.
    "For not stopping him," Glennis said. "He could have killed himself with that old gun."
    "Well damn . . ."
    Smack.

    Harris was right about one thing though. Knute never said a word, just looked at me and then went out to glue and wire the stock together. But that look made me wish I'd never lied about anything in my whole life.

    another basket on the front that took the smaller piles and threw them up and over the back to make larger stacks.
    The stacker was pulled up and over by either Bob or Bill, and Harris said when he was small he used to ride them while they were working, pulling forward and backing up.
    I thought it might be fun to do but neither horse wanted me close. I guess they thought I had something to do with Harris jumping on them or shooting off their backs.
    But we had work to do anyway. As the hay came up over and down from the stacker we had to use forks to spread it out evenly and then walk around packing it down.
    Initially, on the first day, it was fun jumping and bouncing in the fresh summer hay. But that only lasted for part of the time it took to make the initial stack. Then there was another stack, and another, and soon it was work, hard work in dusty hay on a hot afternoon.
    By the end of that beginning day of stacking hay I was exhausted and could hardly keep my eyes open to eat the last meal of the day.
    On the next day, and the next, the work ground me down to the point where I could close my eyes and see haystacks looking like huge loaves of bread in the fields. And even jumping down from a little

    platform inside the barn near the roof to pack the hay so we could put more in became work.
    Haying took a week and at the end of it I was numb. But there came a day when the endless hay at last ended, not a wisp of grass to put up, and Harris looked at me standing by the barn and said:
    "Last one in the river sucks sour pig mud . . ."
    And we were gone, racing for the river at a dead lope, Harris shucking his bibs as he moved, gaining the advantage because that's all he wore.
    The river ran past the house and barn, and near where it passed the house there was a bend and a small pool where eddies had cut the bank. It was not deep—four feet at the most—but had a sandy bottom and was clear and cold, and we hit the water running. Or Harris did. I had to stop and take my shoes and pants off.
    While I was doing so I heard a thumping sound in back of me. I thought immediately of Bill and Bob and worried that they were coming to join the party but I turned to see Knute coming, pulling off his bibs and unbuttoning his shirt.
    He was a big man, not fat but wide, and when he got his