It was the day of my first dancing-school party, and I meant to be as ravishing as possible. In fact, I had just quietly snitched a handful of my mother's bath salts, when I discovered that the tub was already occupied by two fish. My ten-year-old brother Bobby had caught them that afternoon in a creek about a mile from our house. As bass go, they weren't very big, but even a middle-sized bass can look rather large in a bathtub, especially if you come upon it suddenly. Bobby had managed to bring the fish home alive, and he meant to keep them there until father got home from the office and could observe the catch at its fullest glory. To do Bobby justice, he honestly tried to be helpful. "Go ahead, you can get in the tub with them,' he told me. "Even if they sort of nibble at you, it won't hurt."

--from We Shook the Family Tree (1946)