Just for Eiseley:

The Glorious Fourth had come and gone, floated away on a full day of rain. Some people — our Uncles and Aunts and cousins — came over, but nobody stayed long. It was too wet to even shoot the city's fireworks off, and the big display was postponed for a week.

        The fifth was hot and steamy, and by the seventh everyone said that the Dog Day were upon us even though they usually didn't arrive until August.

        Martha asked what Dog Days were and Tony told her that was when dogs got hydrophobia and went mad. Ted asked what they were mad about, and I explained that they were mad because they had rabies. Tony said that they didn't have rabies, they had hydrophobia, and I said that they had rabies and the "hydrophobia" was the only big word Tony knew and that was why he said that the dogs had hydrophobia. Tony said that he knew lots of big words, like "haphephobia" and "fusee" and "trinitrotoulene" and "dekastere" and "chalcedony" and I said that "fusee" wasn't a very big word and Tony said that it was, and Mom said to stop arguing this minute.

        So we stopped arguing and started fighting, and Mom told us to get out of the house and go outside and play or something.

        So we decided to go to Cedar Creek.

        We had Martha fill the canteens and make some sandwiches because Mom hadn't thrown her out to play. Of course, she charged us and when we paid her she stuck her tongue out and said that Dog Days were called that because Sirius, the Dog Star, was high in sky at that time and we weren't as smart as we thought.

        Ted threw an old tomato at her and he got thrown out for the rest of the day, too. (He missed.)
        
        So the three of us trekked off to find whatever adventure might await us at Cedar Creek.

        There wasn't much, to tell the truth. The remains of the old Civil War ironclad were still rusting away, just as they always had as long as we knew. We fished for a while, but only caught a couple of small five-pounders, which we threw back as they were too small to keep.

        It kept getting hotter and muggier. Finally, Tony announced that he was going swimming.

        "It's a long way to the pool in South Park, even though it's a good idea," said Ted.
        
        "I shan't trouble your nascent mind with the whereabouts of proposed natatorial exercise," replied Tony, "except to say that the present venue will suffice."

        "What? What'd he say?" Ted asked me.

        "He said that he's gonna swim here and that your mind is underdeveloped," I replied.

        "Well put, old bean," Tony said. He was starting to annoy me, and Ted didn't understand at all. And with that Tony started to take off his clothes. At our quizzical looks, he said, "One cannot dampen one's vestments, now, can one?" Then he jumped into Cedar Creek without even any clothes on at all!

        Tony swam around, diving at times and coming up nearby and splashing us with water. He was having a great time and urging us to join him. And truthfully, it did look refreshing.

        Ted and I had just about made up our minds to join him when it happened. We probably saw it about the same time — several pairs of eyes sticking up above the water, moving slowly and deliberately toward Tony.

        Ted and I lookd at each other. We knew what they were, and Tony was in deadly danger. And when he came to the surface again we shouted the words of warning:

        "TONY!! TO THE ISLAND!!
        ILLIGATORS!!!!"

        To his credit, he believed us. He looked like a motorboat as he swam to the little island, which was closer than either shore.

        He made it, too, and was about four feet up the island's only sapling by the time the first illigator waddled ashore.

        There were eight of them — brownish-green relatives of the alligator which were, except for snapping turtles and water moccasins, Illinois's most dangerous aquatic reptile. There were each no less than nine feet long, and each seemed to have a dozen rows of long, sharp, pointed, yellow TEETH. They gathered around the foot of Tony's tree and sort of snapped upwards at him. The sounds of their jaws and teeth closing together was frightening to hear.

        By this time, Tony was at the very top of the tree, about twenty-five feet up. The tree was wobbling a little from side to side from his weight.

        "Assistance! Expeditious assistance! Succor!" Tony shouted.

        "I'd say he was a sucker," Ted observed.

        "Tony!" I yelled. "You want help? Is that what you're trying to say?"

        "In sooth!" he replied.

        "Okay, hang on!" I cried. "We'll go get help."

        "Don't get help! Help me!" he yelled.

        "I'll go get Mom and Martha!" I shouted.
        
        "I'll go get the nuns from the convent!" Ted shouted.

        "I'm en deshabille! I mean, I'm bare!" shouted Tony.

        Ted and I were rolling on the ground laughing.   Finally, I gasped out, "Yeah! We couldn't help but notice!"

        Ted gasped out, "Let's get the game warden 'cause there's a bare in that tree!" and he started to laugh again.

        "Your ends are in view if I get out of here," Tony threatened.

        "No, your end's in view," Ted and I replied and laughed some more.

        Tony was upset. We could tell.

        Finally, I said, "I know how you can get away and be safe."

        Tony: "How?"

        Me: "Well, if you're really, really fast you might slide down the tree and outrace the illigators to this shore."

        Tony: "That's a REALLY stupid idea."

        "Just a thought. Besides, the poor illigators look hungry. But since you don't want us to go for help and you're too slow to beat the illigators, why not go by air?" I asked.

        "Ted!" Tony hollered. "Mike's gone crazy! Watch yourself!"

        "No," I responded, "Shift your weight back and forth at the top of the tree just like pumping up a swing. When it's going really good, let go and you'll fly over here. You might break your arm or something, but the illigators DO look both hungry AND patient."

        "Well," Tony decided, "I'll try it. Maybe I'll land in some nice soft mud. Fetch my clothes and watch where I land, okay?"

        Tony started pumping. Slowly, slowly the tree started to respond. Back and forth, forth and back, and for Tony, up and down, too. The illigators got more and more excited as the bending tree brought Tony's heels and feet and legs and other parts closer and closer to their ready jaws. Back and forth, back and forth — and then, just at the point where the illigators could nip his heels on the next go, Tony released the tree and took flight!

        In the history of flight there have been many great moments. From the legends of Daedelus to the first tentative flight of the Wright brothers, to the exploits of Beloit, von Richtofen, Doolittle, Lindbergh, and Earhart — to the heroics of Colin Campbell, of Alan Shephard, and Yuri Gargarin, of Christy McAuliffe and of thousands of other aviators, deeds great and small have been writ on the pages of the sky. Tony's flight, done arms and legs akimbo, cannot be said to be among them.

        To his credit, let it be said that he neither screamed nor broke anything.

        Ted and I dashed after him, carrying his clothes. Tony had gone MUCH further than we had thought that he would. We were concerned because we didn't know then that he hadn't broken anything, and we thought that he might need help.

        Help he did indeed need! But we couldn't give him any right then, for his plight was desperate in the extreme!

        It was also amazingly funny. Tony, you see, completely unclothed as he was, had finished his airborne antics in the exact center of a large, dense, stand of blackberry bushes!

        True, we could rescue him. And eventually we would. But at that time a troop of Girl Scouts were picking blackberries from Tony's stand.

        You would have thought they would have noticed when a bare boy landed in the middle of the blackberry patch, but they didn't seem to. It was a good thing, we thought, that Tony hadn't yelled something.

        Ted and I stopped on a small rise about a hundred yards away to watch the ensuing spectacle. We were, to say the least, hypnotized by the unfolding drama — and torn between laughing quietly and laughing out loud.

        Quickly the Girl Scouts picked, working closer and closer to the center and a very revealing discovery.

        I glanced down and then looked again. "Ted!" I whispered. "Ted! Tony's clothes are gone!"

        "Clothes? He's gonna need clothes in about three minutes," Ted chortled.

        "PSSSSSSSSSST!" came from behind us. "PSSSSSSSSSST!"

        We looked back and there was Tony.

        We knew it was Tony, because only someone who'd tangled with a blackberry patch could look like that.

        He was scratched all over. In addition, he had spots all over his body where blackberries had been crushed when he fell. True, he now had on most of the clothes he'd quietly taken from my side, but there wasn't any place we could see that wasn't either spotted or scratched or, most probably, both.

        "Oh, darn! I mean, how are you? You got away, I see," Ted exclaimed.

        "Crawled between Girl Scouts. Out of bushes. Let's go home," Tony said, and he tied his last shoelace and stood up. He took a step and fell face down into some mud, as he had inadvertently tied his shoelaces together. Again.

        He got up, wiped the mud from his eyes, and we all started home. As we passed the Girl Scouts they looked at us and made some comments about Tony's condition. I told them about the illigators and said that they should be careful because one had chased Tony and he had only escaped by hiding in some blackberry bushes. All of which was, of course, true, but sort of slanted.

        We got home in time for Tony to clean up before a supper, and really enjoyed a repast of anchovies, avocados, aubergine aspic, and asparagus. There was ambrosia to drink, and BOTH auf lauf and snitz kloes for dessert. It was a good ending to a good day, except for Tony, who spent the next two week covered with calomine lotion. You see, there had also been poison ivy in among the blackberries.

        




Note: The very last illigator died on April 17, 1969, at 7:32 p.m. Being mostly teeth and appetite they ate 'most anything, including each other. The last one, which had been kept in the Quincy Zoological Gardens, started biting its toenails and couldn't stop.