When cotton gins processed only a few bales an hour, farmers placed small wooden sheds at the edges of fields to store the handpicked harvest until it could be ginned. They protected their contents from rain, but if by chance they caught fire, sheds and contents were consumed quickly.
Satan is constantly looking for young minds prone to mischief, and he always found mine available. He knew fire fascinated me, and planted an idea in my head that would satiate our mutual pyromania.
Back then, hardware stores offered a hand-warming product known as Thermo. A gel with an aroma that pyromaniacs loved, it came in a can with a screw-off top. Once ignited, it gave off a beautiful blue flame that burned for hours.
One day, while reading about hot-air balloons in the World Book Encyclopedia, I learned that in 1783, two Frenchmen, the Montgolfier brothers, made the first recorded flight in one of those majestic crafts. They stepped into its gondola, lit a fire and, cheered by several thousand Parisians, levitated several hundred feet.
The technology is simple. All one needs is a bag for containing hot air, a gondola, and fuel. I decided to build a mini-hot-air balloon. A can of Thermo served as both gondola and fuel, and I fashioned a wire framework to support the bag — a lime-green, airtight cottonseed sack. She was a beauty! I christened my flying ship the Darling of Dunleith.
Dunleith was a tiny Mississippi Delta hamlet, and was also the name of Dad’s farm. Only a few families — less than fifty souls — lived there. Television had not yet polluted and debauched American living rooms, so Dunleithians sat on their front porches at night, enjoying the quiet and calm of a place as isolated as any on earth. It was on one of those nights that the Darling of Dunleith took her maiden voyage.
When I lit the Thermo, the envelope began taking shape and glowing eerily. I was transfixed with excitement and felt like Orville and Wilbur must have at Kitty Hawk. Soon, the luminous orb broke the surly bonds of earth and meandered across the pitch-black sky toward the little cluster of houses where the Dunleithians were enjoying the evening.
Suddenly, their pleasant chatter became exclamations of fear — “What’s that? A UFO? A bomb? The Angel of Death? It’s the end of time!”
Dunleith’s entire population quaked in terror, gawking at the Darling of Dunleith as she hovered ominously in the Stygian darkness, emanating a greenish UFO glow.
Finally, the balloon descended, but instead of landing on land, it came to rest atop one of Dad’s cotton sheds! Soon, flames climbed high into the night, and Satan danced in delight.
Those who play with fire get burned, and Dad’s belt burned my buttocks, but at least he had a sense of humor. For years afterward, when folks asked him to explain the charred can and tangle of wires hanging in his shop, he told them about the Darling Of Dunleith.
Jimmy Reed is an Oxford, Mississippi resident, Ole Miss and Delta State University alumnus, Vietnam Era Army Veteran, former Mississippi Delta cotton farmer and ginner, author, and retired college teacher.
This story is a selection from Jimmy Reed’s latest book, entitled The Jaybird Tales.
Copies, including personalized autographs, can be reserved by notifying the author via email (.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)).
