Crawdad Creek

How the story opens...

The creek behind our house talks all the time. It whispers in the hot months when the water is low, and it murmurs in the cold months under a skin of ice. After snow melts or rain falls, the creek nearly shouts.

What does it say? I couldn't tell you, any more than I could tell you what the frogs are saying when they croak or the birds when they sing or the winds when they rustle the trees. I just love to listen.

So I'm always glad to visit the creek, especially in the summer when the air is like an oven.

...and how the story ends.

One morning, a sycamore leaf came floating by, the sides curled up to form a little boat, and there inside, as calm as you please, sat a buttely. While I watched, the butterfly opened its orange-and-black wings, and flew.

On clear nights before the moon comes up, stars waver on the surface like fireflies. Wind ruffles the water like a hand brushing over silky cloth.

In the morning before I go to school and at night befor I go to bed, I can hear the mutter and mumble of water pouring over rocks. Even when there are no other critters in sight, I'm never lonesome at Crawdad Creek, because the water keeps talking.