Back at the river, standing on the rocks in the middle, both of us started to see where would be the best spot to get some of the algae. Looking down the stream we saw an area that was quiet, no water movement. We jumped from rock to rock until we reached the area. It was full of algae. The water was quiet, we started to grab the algae.
A few minutes after we started to collect the algae, my sister went onto the bank of the river. I was ready to put my hand in the water when I heard my sister laughing so hard, calling me, her arms around a tree. I looked at her thinking what is wrong with her. She was laughing pointing her fingers at the water. I started to get a bit annoyed by her strange behavior. I didn’t say a word, I was still standing in the middle of the river looking at her and I was very puzzled.
The bucket was in the water near me, she finally started to regain some of her composure. With her arms hugging the tree she told me snakes, snakes, get out of the water. As she was saying that, I reached in the water, grabbed the algae and placed it in the bucket. I looked again at the water couldn’t see anything. At that point I believed she was kidding.
Slowly I walked towards her, leaving the bucket in the river. As I reached her, I turned around still couldn’t see anything. It took about a minute before I saw, in the water, a knot of snakes by the spot I was picking the algae. We looked at each other starting to laugh.
We now had a situation, the bucket with our goods was still in the middle of the river. The other issue we had, we were on the opposite side of the river. We had no way out, we couldn’t just cross over. We had to go back up from where we came. We were debating at that point, how to deal with bucket, the snakes, and who should go first.
I knew the little one would not try to pick up the bucket. I was able to convince her to go first. She was now starting to walk into the river. She reached the middle of the river when she froze, she couldn’t move. My mischievous spirit realized that she wasn’t going to move. So, I started to scream at my sister, snakes! snakes!!! As she was ready to run up the steam I screamed at her take the bucket! Take the bucket!
In a panic she started to run, grabbed the bucket went up the stream as quickly as she could. I went in the river ran up the stream following her. We left the river bank. On the way back home I told her, there was no snakes when I screamed at her. She was a bit upset but I knew she would not take the bucket. For once I needed her to help.
We arrived at home, gave the bucket to my father. We never told him about the incident. Now we have a full pound alive with fish. The baby fish grew big as the years passed. During winter time they would stay alive under the ice. It was amazing.