Will o’the Wisp
By Margaret F. Moose

     “I heard a gator in the pond down past the pecan orchard,” Sophie said as she put strawberry jam on her scrambled eggs.
     “I don’t know how you can eat eggs with jelly on them,” her daddy said shaking his head and smiling, “but what makes you think there is a gator in the pond.”
    “I heard her slide into the water,” Sophie mumbled, her mouth full of fresh eggs she had gathered herself that morning. “I heard her when I was down at the back gate, sounded like a big one, she might get a piglet. I bet she’s got a nest on the sandy bank by the old fort road. The sunlight there is just right and so is the soil.”
      Her daddy laughed, “When did you get to be a gator expert?”
    “I watch them down at Robin’s Cut when we are fishing, they are more complicated than people think,” Sophie said with admiration, “they aren’t just dumb lizards.”
      Her daddy smiled. He knew she was a smart little girl, so painfully aware of the world around her, she rarely missed anything. She helped all the farm animals when they were injured; she raised baby birds that fell from the trees, and cried over the calves that died at birth. Six ducks she raised still think she is their mother and they follow her from the pond to the house but her observations of the wild animals were what really amazed her father; she spent her entire summer when she was eight following a family of raccoons. “I think you might be a vet or a scientist one day. You have a way with creatures especially wild ones,” he said still smiling.
     “I have never seen a girl vet,” Sophie said with her eyes down. “I don’t know if girls can be vets.  Caleb says that girls stay home and cook and have babies; they can’t be doctors.”
      “Caleb is just jealous because you are so smart; you can be anything you want to be,” her daddy said as he gently rubbed her back with his big calloused hand. He knew Caleb was half right, it would be harder for her but he did not want to tell a twelve year old that her dreams could not come true…if she believed it was possible she could make it happen.
     “Do you really think so?” Sophie asked, her big brown eyes were suddenly brighter.
     “Of course I do,” her father lied a bit, “you can be a doctor or anything else you set your mind to. I will go down to the pond today and shoot that gator.”
     “Oh no,” Sophie cried as she shook her head, her braids swung violently from side to side. “I did not mean you should kill her. She will stay near the nest and I want to put some barbed wire up on the side of the old road. It will keep the pigs out and I can observe the nest until the eggs hatch. I want to watch up close and see how she is with her younguns. I think they care for their babies more than most folks think. Will you help me with the fence?”
     “Well,” her daddy answered as he rubbed his chin with his thumb and forefinger, “ I have to plant the lower field with beans today and fix the well crank but I think I can manage some time after dinner if you can get the wire and poles down to the pond. There is plenty of extra behind the smoke houses and truthfully I don’t like for the hogs to go past the old road anyway, too many snakes and wild boar.”
      “Oh yes,” Sophie squealed so pleased with his answer. “I will get the wire down to the pond. Thank you Daddy.” She jumped up and hugged him.
      “Don’t get too close to any gator now especially one with younguns.” He said as she hugged his waist, “and I don’t want to have a pond full of the baby gators growing up to eat all my hogs. What are you going to do about that?”
    Sophie looked thoughtful for a moment. “I don’t think the big gator will stay too long, there is not enough there for her to eat and if I have to I will catch the young ones in my fish net and take them down to the marsh.”
      “Okay,” her father said, “that part is up to you but if the big gator won’t go I can’t have her that close, she is a danger to the livestock and you know what I will have to do.”
      “I understand…” Sophie yelled as she ran out the back door.
       Her father just smiled and finished his coffee.
*
     It took Sophie most of the morning to get the rolls of wire and posts ready to take down to the old fort road. She had to catch the mule and hitch him up to the small cart then she had to load the wire by rigging up a ramp with some old barn boards and rolling them up onto the cart. The posts were the easy part but by the time she got the cart loaded she was exhausted. She took a break and ate scuppernongs in the shade of the grape arbor. Her momma was in Wilmington helping her older sister with the new baby or she would have had to come in and eat a proper lunch but her daddy was not so concerned with such things so she had at least another week of freedom.
     After her lunch of scuppernongs Sophie headed out towards the old fort road. The road had gotten that name because it once led to a civil war battery down by the river. Daddy told her the battery had been used to set up crossfire on the river from Fort Fisher on the other side. Mostly it was just mounds of sandy earth covered with sea oats and sand spurs but there were a couple of old storage bunkers that had half way fallen in and some rotted wooden doors and cannon platforms. In the winter when the snakes were sleeping Sophie would go there and look for things like buttons and lead balls, once she even found a pair of spectacles but her daddy did not know. Of all the places on the farm that was the one place she was not supposed to go because her daddy was afraid there might be unexploded ordinance there and he said it was too dangerous. But she was only going as far as the road today not around the pond and down to the river. 
      Sophie stopped the cart a hundred feet or so from the pond and she walked the rest of the way being as quiet as possible. She ducked down behind some tall grass by the side of the road and peeked up slowly and there she was; the big female gator was floating right in the center of the black water pond enjoying the afternoon sun on her back. Sophie had been right about her size she was huge. Knowing it was going to be a awhile before her daddy showed up Sophie worked her way back to the cart unloaded it and took the mule home to the barn. A gator that size would spook any mule and Sophie did not want...Continue Reading