ALL characters herein are real and the events are real. Ain't nothing made up or anything. Nope.

        The fishing hadn't been very good. Tony and I had only caught a couple of ten pound fish and it was nearly noon and time for lunch, which Ted was fixing.

        "OOOOOOOOOWWWWW!" suddenly came the cry.

        "Sounds like Ted," I remarked to Tony.

        "Or a coyote, or an unhappy dog, like the neighbor's dog does when you sing," he replied.

        "OWWWW! Help!" came the cry again.

        "Yup, Ted," I said. "Probably has gone and spilled the soup or something."

        "Yup," agreed Tony, "maybe we oughta get back and see what he's done to lunch this time."

        "We have to turn the fish loose first," I said. "Furry carp are fun to catch, but you can't eat them."

        After we did this, we turned back on the trail to the old Schlatter barn, where Ted was supposed to be cooking the soup we'd brought for lunch.

        The noise continued.

        "We are never going to catch any fish this way even after lunch," Tony said.

        "Not with him making enough noise to scare everything within ten miles," I said.

        We walked into the clearing by the old barn (which had long ago fallen down) and saw an unsual sight. Ted was sitting on a log with one foot on top of a board, and he was screaming. What was remarkable was that he had his shoes off.

        "I say, Old Man," Tony began, "are you in pain, or are you singing?"

        Ted looked at us with tears in his eyes. He had been crying, which we usually didn't do unless we couldn't help it..

        "This is the end," he said. "You guys have been okay as far as brothers go, but this is it."

        "Well, yes," I said. "Did you have some date in mind for this end?"

        "Probably today," he answered. "I...I took my shoes off to soak my feet in the spring, but as I was getting up I saw a mouse and I kicked at it and it bit my toe and as I was bringing my foot back I stepped on this board and now I have a rusty nail sticking in my foot and when I tried to lift my foot the board came up too. We all know about how dangerous rusty nails are."

        Tony said, "Hydrophobia AND lockjaw. That isn't good. Did you fix the soup?"

        I said, pityingly, "It's going to be tough, foaming at the mouth and having lockjaw. But we'll be with you, as long as you don't bite us or something."

        Ted said, "Dummies! You've got the first aid kit with you! You can fix me up until we can get home!"

        "Oh, yeah. I forgot about the first aid kit. I'm hungry and there's no soup to eat," Tony said. "First aid on an empty stomach is likely to lead to complications down the road. I could forget to give you artificial respiration or to tie a tourniquet around your neck or something."

        "I don't NEED artificial respiration!" yelled Ted. "I need to get this board off my foot, something to kill the germs, and some bandages!"

        I remarked, "It might be simpler to try to walk with the foot on the board. It's a pretty long board, but we could chop it into something about the length of your foot if you haven't lost the hatchet."

        "I. Want. My. Foot. Loose. From. The Board!" Ted screamed.
        
        "I understand you to say that you don't want to stay connected to this board," said Tony, and Ted nodded in agreement.

        "Okay. Mike, let's just cut his foot off. The germs probably haven't gotten very far into his blood stream and...." said Tony, reasonably.

        "NO!" Ted interrupted. "You're not cutting off my foot! Mom wouldn't like it!"

        "Well, there is that," I remarked to Tony. "Let's analyze the situation before we do anything."

        "Okay. We were fishing and Ted got bit by a mouse and stepped on a rusty nail and is going to get rabies and lockjaw and probably blood poisoning," Tony answered.

        Ted said faintly, "Oh my. I'd forgotten about blood poisoning."

        "First, let's pull the nail out," Tony suggested.

        "If we pull the nail out all of his blood will run out the hole," I responded rationally.

        "That's why you guys can do first aid!" Ted answered loudly. "Didn't you learn ANYTHING in Boy Scouts?"

        "Might as well try it," said Tony, "because with lockjaw and blood poisoning and rabies he's got nothing to lose."

        So Tony and I carefully stood on the board and Ted bent down a grabbed his leg and with a sudden jerk pulled it up and off the nail.

        "Wow! That's one of them old fashioned square nails, and it sure is rusty, " I observed

        "Yeah, and it's all bloody, too," observed Tony.

        "If you guys would please stop looking at the nail, I'd like some first aid," Ted said, blood dripping from the hole in his foot.

        "Oh, sure. Right way," Tony and I said at the same time. "Sure is a big nail, though," I said as I picked up the board to tossed it away.

        "Better go get that," said Tony. "I think we have to take the nail in to show the doctor so they know what sort of nail it was."

        "Nah, that's for snakebite," I said. But I'll go get it if you want."

        "PLEASE fix my foot!" yelled Ted.

        We opened our first aid package. There was some ointment, some square cotton pads, a roll of gauze, a pair of small scissors, a razor blade (for cutting open snake bites), a lead bullet (to bite on), a needle and thread, and some other first aid stuff.

        "I know!" I said, "Let's wash the blood away first! Then we can see what sort of wounds we're dealing with!"

        "Great idea!" said Tony, and picked up a rusty can to get some water from the edges of a nearby pool of pond scum.

        "Ah, guys," observed Ted, "why not just use the water in the canteens?"

        "Because we never thought it," I replied, "and besides, we might get thirsty later on. I'm also hungry and that affects my thinking."

        "Thinking?" asked Tony. "When did you start doing that?"

        "There are three candy bars in my pack. I was saving them for emergencies and this is an emergency so we can each have one for lunch." He opened his pack and tossed a candy bar to me and Tony. "NOW FIX MY FOOT!" he shouted.

        So Tony and I started to wash his foot as we ate our candy bars. Ted hadn't taken a bath or anything for several days and a couple of times Tony seemed not to want to eat his candy bar. But we managed to wash away the blood from the sole of his foot and the end of his big toe.

        "Wooooo! That's some nail hole and mouse bite," Tony said, amazed. "I'm surprised you're still alive."

        "There's till some blood leaking out," I said. "Let's build a nice fire and cauterize it. That'll stop the blood from leaking out AND kill the germs."

        "Cauterize?" asked Ted. "What does that mean?"

        I explained. "It means that we get some really, really hot iron or maybe a torch and use it to burn the blood vessels shut. It only hurts for a little while, I think."

        "Ah, no," Ted said. "Instead, lets put something on it and some gauze pads and bandage it and get me home. The Mom can take me to the hospital."

        "Excellent idea!" responded Tony. "In fact, I've been reading up on this very thing. We need to pull the poisons out of the holes and the best thing for that according to all the best books I've read is to spread fresh cow manure all over Ted's foot. It'll pull the poisons out as it dries."

        "So does tobacco juice, like the guys who chew tobacco spit. You put it on and let it dry and it pulls the poisons out!" I agreed.

        "Or gunpowder!"   Tony said. "We could pour some gunpowder on the wound and light it and....oh, wait. We don't have any. Mom said we couldn't have any, remember?"        

        I said, " We could trephine him and let the evil poisons and germs out through a hole in his head!"

        "What's that?" asked Tony.

        "We drill a hole in his head and the evil poisons come out through that," I explained.
        
        "Oh, what a good idea! Let me see if we have a drill," Tony said.

        "Would you two just put some ointment and a bandage on my foot, and please get on with it?" Ted pleaded.

        "Oh, alright, but all the authorities agree that's not the best treatment" said Tony, and quick as wink wiped a whole bunch of ointment on the bite on Ted's toe.

        The ointment really, really stung when you put it on a hurt place so Ted yelled some more, and it also turned the place bright orange. Quickly I put a gauze pad on his toe and wrapped it in place with a piece from the roll of gauze. Then I split the end of the gauze and put one end one way and the other the other and tied it in place with a neat bow knot.

        Meanwhile, Tony had wiped away the dripping blood with one of Ted's socks and then slathered a lot of ointment on the hole. As Ted continued to scream, he put some pads on the hole and wrapped the rest of the gauze around his foot and tied it in place with a lace from one of Ted's shoes. Then he wiped the rest of the ointment on the bandage "just to be safe."

        Ted now had a good left foot and a big, wrapped up, orange right foot. He was no longer screaming and crying from the ointment.

        Tony turned to me and said, "Well, that's that. Let's go catch some fish."

        Ted said, rather forcefully, "Let's go home so Mom can take me to the doctor."

        Tony said, "Tsk, tsk. Well, I suppose we should, really. It's probably the least we can do for our little brother who's going to be so sick. I thought the fishing would be better this afternoon but okay, put on your shoes and let's go." And he started cleaning things up, picking up the candy wrappers and putting the first aid stuff away.

        I said to Ted, "I don't think you can put on your right shoe and walk without help" and he agreed.

        He put on his left shoe and sock, and then took them off and put them on again with the sock first.

        "Oh, my," said Tony. "We'll have to either carry him out of the Swamp and home or at least help him walk." He shoved Ted's remaining shoe and his bloody sock into Ted's pack. "We are SUCH good brothers, aren't we, Mike?" he asked me.

        I picked up a forked branch and started trimming it with the hatchet. "Yes, we are. See? I'm even making him a crutch so he can walk without touching us and spreading his germs around."

        So we started home. The crutch worked okay, sort of, but we had to help Ted over fences and under bushes and the crutch was a little long. This we solved easily enough when we got to the sidewalks by having him hobble along with his crutch in the gutter. Once he put it into a storm drain, but we helped him out of that.

        For some reason Ted kept telling us how much it hurt and we assured him that what which the rabies and blood poisoning and lockjaw and gangrene and leprosy he had he wouldn't be suffering much longer.

          Boy, was Mom excited when we got home. She rushed him to the Emergency Room without even commenting on the nice first aid job Tony and I had done. They were gone maybe two hours and it was nearly suppertime when they got back.

        Ted had a real crutch and a bandaged foot. He was walking pretty normally, for him, and he ate supper standing up. The doctor at the hospital had given him two or three shots that made sitting down painful.

        He never did get lockjaw or tetanus or gangrene or rabies or anything except after school started his stomach would hurt when he hadn't done his homework and later on he caught a cold.

        Mom told us that the doctor had remarked on our first aid, saying that he'd never before seen so much first aid ointment applied so well or so much gauze used to bandage a foot, and that made us proud. The doctor also said it was a good thing we didn't cut Ted's foot off because that would have lead to all sorts of problems for Ted, not the least of which would have been a wooden leg and THAT would have meant a career as a pirate and of course THAT would have given Ted an unfair advantage over Tony and me. Mom never did mention our idea about trephining to the doctor, I guess.