An Uncle Toby McCarley Porch Story

Night Twenty-Three: The Creek

The twenty-third evening arrived beneath a sky so clear it looked freshly washed. The Porch Club had become a fixture of summer. People no longer asked where they were going after supper. They knew. They were coming to Hughes Street.

Uncle Toby emerged carrying sweet tea. The crowd applauded. Again. The old man stopped. Looked around. And sighed.

“Y’all are impossible.”

“So are you,” Pearl answered.

“Fair.”

He settled into the peacock chair. The wicker creaked. The audience quieted. And the old man nodded.

“All right.”

“The creek.”

The crowd leaned forward.

“What creek?”

“Terrapin.”

A murmur rippled through the gathering. Everybody knew that creek. And just like that, the years slipped away.

Summer, 1952. Three years after the first Golden Squirrel banquet. The town had changed. A little. The squirrel remained. The tradition continued. New names had been added to the base. New winners celebrated. Life moved along.

And Clayton Reynolds kept doing what Clayton Reynolds did. Helping. Building. Fixing. Showing up.

One July afternoon, several boys were swimming in Terrapin Creek. The water ran cool. The rocks were slick. The fish remained unimpressed.

The boys were attempting something inadvisable. As boys generally do. Specifically, they were jumping from a large rock into a deep pool. One of them slipped.

Back on Hughes Street, the crowd instantly grew quiet. Uncle Toby nodded. “Yep.”

The laughter vanished.

In 1952, the boy struck his head. Not hard enough to kill him. Hard enough to stun him. The current carried him. His friends panicked. Because panic is considerably easier than swimming.

They shouted. They waved. They ran. And by pure chance, Clayton Reynolds happened to be nearby repairing a fence.

Back on Hughes Street, Earl smiled.

“Of course he was.”

“Exactly.” The old man took a sip of tea.

In 1952, Clayton heard the shouting. Dropped his hammer. And ran. Without asking questions. Without hesitation. Without considering anything except the emergency. By the time he reached the creek, the boy had disappeared beneath the surface.

Clayton dove. The water was muddy. The current was strong. Visibility nearly nonexistent. Yet somehow, he found him. Dragged him out. Pulled him ashore. And stayed with him until help arrived.

The boy survived. Entirely.

Back on Hughes Street, Pearl smiled.

“There.”

“What?” asked Earl.

“That’s a Golden Squirrel.”

The crowd nodded. Several people murmured agreement. The old man smiled. A little sadly.

“You’d think.”

The yard went quiet.

In 1952, a small article appeared in the Jacksonville News. A modest article. Three paragraphs. A photograph. The headline read:

LOCAL MAN RESCUES BOY FROM CREEK

The article praised Clayton. The boy’s family thanked him. The town talked about it for a week. Then life moved on.

Another squirrel was awarded. Another banquet held. Another year passed. And eventually the article found its way into Maybelline’s scrapbook.

Beside it she wrote another note. The old Toby smiled.

“Same pencil.”

A pause.

“Same handwriting.”

Another.

“Same determination.”

The crowd waited.

“What’d she write?” asked Pearl.

The old man looked toward the darkness. Toward memories. Toward a little girl sitting at a kitchen table.

Then quietly he said: “Daddy saved Tommy Green.”

Silence. Because there wasn’t anything dramatic about it. It was simply true. A fact she refused to let disappear. The old man slowly rose from the peacock chair.

Before the crowd could object, Toby flashed that dangerous grin. At the screen door he paused, and turned back.

And said: “Tomorrow night… Tommy Green grows up.”

The crowd blinked.

“What?”

The old man nodded.

“And forgets somethin’.”