Barefoot at the Lake. Bruce Fogle

Steve and Rob were already at the fort when I arrived with Uncle Reub and they didn’t know what to do or what to say when they saw him.

      ‘Hello, boys. So this is your hideout,’ he said and they nodded.

      ‘What’s this?’ he asked, and with his right hand he collected a spider’s web from amongst the branches that made up the fort. He divided the web into two portions and, like a sideshow magician at the county fair, he placed a portion of the web in each of his nostrils. Then he sneezed into his hand and opened it up and there was the spider that had woven that web. The other boys decided it would be fun for Uncle Reub to stay.

      UNCLE'S STORIES

      ‘Boys, it’s an honour for me to be allowed to visit your fort,’ Uncle Reub said, and Steve, the oldest, replied the way he thought he should. ‘And it’s an honour, Rob’s Uncle, to have the great storyteller visit us.’

      Rob showed our uncle around the fort, Perry’s and my section, Rob and Steve’s section and the jail where we sometimes kept Fronko. Uncle told us he was impressed by its construction and by the number of dead snakes and frogs hanging on Rob and Steve’s section. The frogs had pine needles stuck in their eye sockets and through the webs of their feet.

      ‘Were these frogs alive when you stuck them with pine needles?’ Uncle asked, and Steve told him they were.

      ‘I stick needles into people but always to make them better, never intentionally to hurt them,’ Uncle replied, and he continued, ‘animals can’t speak up for themselves so it’s up to us to do what’s best for them.’

      At the fort, the older boys made all the decisions, what we would use for building material, who would do what work, how we would kill the snakes we caught. Perry and I did what we were told to do, especially me. I never complained. When once I told Uncle Reub that the big boys were bullies, my uncle said that strength doesn’t come from your arms and legs. Strength starts in your head then it spreads slow but sure to the rest of your body.

      ‘Boys, now I don’t mean this as criticism but do you ever think when you’re here that you’re acting like animals?’

      When he said that I felt my uncle was criticising us but before I could speak he continued, ‘You know, the animals in the woods, when they look at you they think you’re very strange. They think that it’s much better, it’s more noble, to be an animal than to be a person.’

      ‘There aren’t many animals in the woods,’ I replied. ‘Besides, it’s our woods.’

      ‘Ah, but there are, and they’re all watching you, right now. Everywhere. You might think this is your woods but it’s really theirs. When the summer is gone and you’re back at school, they will visit your fort and piss on it and make it theirs again. Do you want to know why?’

      ‘I think we’re going to hear one of Uncle’s stories,’ Robert said. We sat on the ground while Uncle sat on the trunk of a fallen tree.

      Then he continued.

      ‘Animals think, “People have no tails so how do they keep their feet and noses warm?”

      ‘They see we have no hair on our bodies and wonder how we can protect ourselves from thorns and poison ivy.

      ‘They see we only have two legs and wonder how fast we can run.

      ‘They see we have small ears and they’re not on top of our heads and they wonder how well we can hear.

      ‘They see we have tiny noses and wonder how well we can smell.