My younger brother, Pete, was a crack shot.



Some of the shots he made were not believable, unless I had seen them myself. For example, the time a blue racer had climbed the pole our bluebird house stood atop. The frantic mother fluttered outside the perch and the snake struck at her from inside. Pete steadied the little Winchester pump on the hood of our car and waited. The next time the snake flashed his head through the opening, Pete shot it off. A clean shot, the gaping head landed at the foot of pole.



Only eleven or twelve, he shot quail on the wing with the .22 often and rabbits had little chance. My father, once a game warden and big-game safari guide, always used his shotgun.



So it was not surprising that Pete brought home a duck and announced that he'd shot us dinner for Thanksgiving. What was suspicious, as an afterthought, was that he'd dressed and plucked the bird. “How thoughtful,” Mother remarked, thinking perhaps that he was growing up.



That prospect and the end of the long years of Depression and War, the new house with its central dinning room and recently retrieved family furnishings made it all a magical blending of old and new. No more tents, camps and tenements, desperate jobs and rainbow pie. Maybe the good times had finally returned.



There was no need to thaw a chicken or the turkey we'd raised and 'harvested' earlier that year in our Great Chicken Slaughter. I had raised Rhode Island Reds and Bantams as a 4H project, winning a blue ribbon at the county fair for a crossbred Bantam which laid large eggs. They had long gone wild and multiplied beyond counting. Against Mother's wishes, Pop and I had sneaked a pair of baby turkeys into the mix and it was weeks before she realized it. They were in our freezer, too.



Freezer? Yeh. The REA (Rural Electrification Administration) had finally gotten around to us and for the first time we had electricity. Steaks and ground beef and pork, especially bacon lay inside the big white box, too.



My mother was not a very good cook, I knew even then. But later I came to appreciate her willingness to try a wide variety of meals … Chinese, Mexican, Eastern European, early American. Anything was better than the fare we'd had during the war, I suppose, the potted meats and fake cheese, and not enough of any of it. The meal I liked least was the one she made most often, usually on Sunday. Fricasee chicken and dumplings, pressure cooked because the birds were usually tough old roosters, and bland, pasty dumplings.



So I was eager … well, at least willing to have a duck for dinner. It was small, so there wouldn't be left-overs. That was something.



The baking smells coming from the kitchen were odd and strong, but we had never had a duck before. And when my sister set the long mahogany table with its huge central pedastal, one my mother kept so highly polished against the Florida damp and mold, and her family's old silver and fancy napkins, it seemed properly important. On the wall behind me hung a painting of my mother's fore bearer, a young woman lavishly dressed in Victorian splendor. I never really understood who it was, but she valued it.



There was the usual fixings; victuals, Mother called them by their correct name, 'though everyone else said vittles. We had yams, peas, red cabbage, cornbread, store-bought butter and we children had glasses of milk. Pop and Mom had a special dark Port Wine in deep red glasses.



We sat down on the tall backed chairs Mother had used as a child and my sister, who was just finishing her fifth straight year of perfect Sunday School attendance and had earned a white leather book with Holy Bible printed in gold script on it, said a prayer of gratitude.



My father thanked Pete for his contribution and offered to let him cut the bird. He shook his head, 'No.'



So Pop sliced it up, its gamy odor more prominent now, and placed a portion on each of our plates.



Mother was first to place a piece in her mouth, the rest of us, except Pete following. He simply watched, his pale eyes flashing to each of us.



It tasted terrible, like swamp muck or decayed, rubbery mulch.



But I most recall my mother's face. In rapid succession it flitted from surprise to horror to shame to anger and she fixed my brother with bright green eyes.



He was already standing, as if it had suddenly dawned on him that a bad joke had gone too far. “Its a mud-hen,” he said without humor. Then he bolted from the dinning room out into the late afternoon.



“Don't eat it,” Mother said, spitting it daintily into her napkin. Later, frying up some hamburger patties, she said absently, “if he'd told me I could have soaked it in milk overnight. That might have taken most of the rankness out of it.”



But Pop had gone out looking for Pete, who didn't return until the next day, and by the time the beef was ready the rest of the meal was cold.



I don't recall my mother ever cooking after that. Certainly not another big occasion meal.