Mr. Jerome Creath was another regular at the nightly meetings and he was telling us about a deer he tried to shoot. It was early November and he had walked quite a distance into the woods when he spotted a good size buck. He was a little too quick on the draw and the deer ran off with a gut wound. The unpardonable sin in Maine is to let an animal suffer, especially if you had been the main cause of its misery, so he took off on the run hoping to catch the deer and kill it. The buck was bleeding enough to make it quite easy to follow his trail in the fresh fallen snow. Mr. Creath was slowing down a little when he finally spotted the buck. He was about a hundred yards ahead of him and standing on the edge of a creek bank trying to decide if he should cross or not. He saw, and heard, Mr. Creath moving toward him so she jumped onto the ice and scurried on across. Once standing safely on the opposite side of the creek he ran off into the woods. When Mr. Creath reached the creek bank he didn�t hesitate for a moment. He had just seen the deer jump on the ice and his tracks were there in the inch deep snow showing the deer had run across to the other side. He was sure he could do the same. Before his feet ever touched the ice he realized he had made a big mistake. It was early November and the ice had not frozen solid yet. Mr. Creath disappeared below the thin ice on the creek and when the cold water rushed over his body he dropped his rifle. Luckily he drifted below the ice a very short distance when he found a spot shallow enough to allow him to stand and break his way through the ice. He lost his rifle and didn�t recover it until the following spring when the ice thawed.

   Every male in the room felt sorry for Mr. Creath except one; me. Somehow the thought of an older man trying to follow a deer across the unfrozen creek tickled my funny bone, but out of politeness to him I held back my laughter. That night when my grandfather and I got home I took a piece of my school paper and wrote a poem about the story I had heard earlier. I made it as humorous as I could for a ten year old boy and when my masterpiece was complete I showed it to my grandparents. (they raised me) I was anxious to take it the following evening to the country store and show it to Mr. Creath and the other regulars. Somehow my grandfather was smart enough not to let that happen.

   �I�ve got to do something with this poem,� I told them, �I think other people would find it funny.�

   �I�ll tell you what to do,� my wise old grandfather offered. �The next time you go into town take it to the Lubec Herald and see if someone there will put it in the paper, but whatever you do don�t sign your name to it.� I took his good advice and sure enough the following week when the paper came out my poem was in it. I had been given a new name; Anonymous.

   That evening at the country store was probably one of the worst, and scariest, evenings I ever endured in my entire life. Mr. Creath was madder than a lawyer who had just lost an easy case. He repeatedly vowed if he ever found out who had written such a poem and had it published he�d cut him up in small pieces, put him in the brine in his hogshead, and use him for lobster bait.

   I never heard another deer story from Mr. Creath and he never read another poem from this young author. I also took my grandfather�s advice and gave up writing poems until I was well away from South Lubec.

   I never saved the poem I had written about Mr. Creath but I think I�ll add a poem here so you can probably understand why Mr. Creath got so mad at me.