Richmond Press, Inc.                          Richmond, VA                          1938

The Hummocks

Down below Diamond Hill, in dear old Manchester, lay a small lowground, one of a series of such formations that girded the shore from Grapevine Rapids down to Marx's Fields. It was called by the old ladies "The Hummocks," perhaps because there would usually be hummocks of driftwood piled up there by the latest freshet. This was a very little one, being limited by the causeway of the Petersburg Railway bridge above and that of the Free Bridge below (Ninth Street Bridge, in the vernacular of these degenerate days). In it there was a broad and picturesque rock, or outcropping of granite, with two tiny tarns in its bosom, in which lived roach, catfish and minnows, that furnished sport for the little duck-legged citizens. Tadpoles dwelt there, too, and eke water snakes (not moccasins, but Natrix Sipedon Piscivorus and Natrix Sipedon Fasciata).

So one day I was coming ashore from the bridge, coming along the causeway toward town, when I met two Diamond Hill cats, Jimmie Lewis and another little rooster whose name I cannot now recall, but whose face and the peculiar expression of whose bare feet and legs is fresh in my memory.

Jimmie had a big bullfrog in his grasp, which the two had just caught out of the tarn in the "hummocks."

"What are you goin' to do with him?" I queried, in eager, boy-curiosity.

"Goin' to sell him to the Eyetalian for fi' cent."

For, at the end of the Free Bridge was a small shop or fruit stand kept by a son of Sunny Italia.

"What's he goin' to do with him?" again I queried.

"Cook him and eat him."

"Is a bullfrog good to eat?" In amazement. "Yeh!" almost shouting it "Good as hell!"

Well! If bullfrogs are good to eat, le's see 'bout that! (Such thoughts ran through the brain of this small personage.)

I went home. And as Walter Owen came by, a little later, I took advice from him.

"Walter" (he was some twenty-five years old, but we were good friends) "how do you ketch bullfrogs?"

And he told me. Straight I went to work, got three fish hooks, bound them together like a minute grappel, fastened a two-foot line to them, got a stiff pole and, with the greatest joy of anticipation imaginable, hied me toward the "hummocks."

Stole cautiously along the rock-bound margin of the tarn and presently spied a great bullfrog at the margin, taking his ease. Dropped the hook over until it came just under his chin and lifted him out. Oh! what ecstasy! I had actually ketched a great frog.

Soon I was running home, hair flying in the wind, and proceeding to prepare him for the pan. "What are you going to do with that frog?" queried my fastidious mother.

"Cook him an' eat him," sententiously.

"Are frogs good to eat?" With a shudder.

"Yes," they are good." Such faith had I in the knowledge of my Diamond Hill friends.

"Well," she agreed. "The French eat them."

("Yes," thought I. "And this Virginian is goin' to eat um.")

I was much surprised at the cleanness of his frogship, and at the pearly white flesh after he was fried. And my gracious! What tenderness, what delicacy of flavor, exceeding chicken, turkey, duck--what else is it that's good to eat?

Since then I have eaten frog legs whenever I could get them, thanks to Jimmie and his little pal.