The 1930's Brothers 2

" Row a bit there Babe, (Aka Ross..his real name but Babe stuck and would be used by his mother for a lifetime ) I am not doing all the work and then splitting the money if you won't even row! " his brother voiced. 

Don was tired from diving the lake for bottles. Babe didn't even swim. Don could easily swim across the vast bay. These antics much to their fathers dismay, as he watched them from his cobblers bench window. They were, mostly the elder Don, always up to something. 

Today it was the row boat and bottles. In those nineteen thirties and early forties there were few laws about tossing whatever into the lake. Bottles had deposits. It made diving for them worth a boy's day or more. 

At its deepest Kempenfelt Bay was 136 ft. and almost 2 miles wide in places. You could not see it's 14 ft length. Many burbs and small towns dotting its banks. 

Don was in the water. No mask and no fear. He dove again and again. Coming up, tossing his finds back into the boat. Babe held the boat as steady as a small boy could. His mind often wandered off and he forgot his task at hand. 

Don took that as opportunity to prank his dowdy brother. He got tight under the hull of the tin cup boat where Babe couldn't see him. Eventually little Ross was hollering for Don.

Sure his brother was drown he would get higher and higher pitch in his frantic calling. Soon enough he'd be in tears so Don snuck around the opposite side to which Babe was looking and scared the bejezus out of him. He nearly fell into the lake. 

Next a holler. Just one. With tone.

From a window came " Donald!!!!! " It was loud enough to echo. Dad. The boys knew bottle diving was done for the rest of the day. 

" 87 cents, Babe! " 

The boys, still in their bathing shorts, were in the backyard counting their earnings. Arguing ensued as to whom the extra penny should go to. Don was booming that is was clearly his since he did all the diving and went in to take the bottles back. It was hard to argue that point, and he was sure he was about to get the fist, so Babe relented. 

" It's yours. I don't feel like having my face rearranged! " and he ran inside with his 43 cents.