Read The Adventures of Jack and Billy Joe for Free Online

chicken yard, the boys found the boards and a three-foot-by-five-foot RC Cola sign. They moved the boards, leaning them against the back of the chicken house. They laid the RC Cola sign on top of the chicken house to get it out of the way.
    “Let me dig first,” Billy Joe said.
    “Well, you better start digging then. With your big mouth you’re gonna scare them all to China.”
    “Aw, that ain’t so. Worms ain’t got no ears,” Billy Joe defended himself.
    “No”—Jack continued to make up a story to tease Billy Joe—“but they feel the vibrations of your words.”
    “You’re pullin’ my leg,” Billy Joe protested.
    “Naw, up at Bronson’s worm farm at Pendorf, their biggest problem is worm stampedes,” Jack continued the story.
    “Jack, the Devil’s gonna get you for telling lies like that,” Billy Joe said.
    “The next time you are up there, you ask them,” Jack fabricated. “When it lightnings and thunders, it vibrates those metal troughs they keep them in and they all start trying to get out. It takes all their people to keep throwing them back in the troughs until the thunderstorm is over.”
    “Really?”
    “Yeah. Would I lie about a thing like that?” Jack lied.
    The boys took turns digging in the rich earth and found several hundred worms—just enough to let them see how many a keg would hold.
    In the next week, they visited all the places where they had dug worms in the past and some new ones they had not.
    They also developed a routine for taking care of their worms. They kept the keg in the shade under the back steps of the house and every afternoon at three Jack sprinkled in exactly a half cup of water.
    Jack covered the keg with an old towel his mother gave him and secured it with a rubber band made out of an old inner tube he found in the garage.
    Each day, the boys would add a layer of worms and a couple inches of rich dirt to the keg.
    Finally, they decided that they now had a ‘keg of worms.’
    “What do we do now?” Billy Joe asked.
    “Tonight I get Daddy to call Uncle Red.”
    “When we gonna ask him to come take us fishing?” Billy Joe asked.
    “We’re not,” Jack said. “He said that we should call him after we get a keg of worms and he would come take us fishing when he can. He has to work, you know.”
    “When will your daddy call him?”
    “I ’spec’ he will call right after supper tonight,” Jack said. “I’ll make it sound kinda urgent, like maybe the worms are dying or somethin’.”
    “Just say you’re not too sure about the worms stayin’ alive. That’s possible. He knows more about worms than we do so you can’t fool him saying they are, for sure, dying.”
    “Yeah, okay,” Jack said to that strange logic.
    After supper, Jack asked his dad to call Uncle Red and tell him they had the keg of worms.
    “Okay, I’ll call him but remember, he’s working and may not be able to get here to take you fishing for quite a while. Don’t be disappointed if that’s what he says.”
    “I won’t be but he did promise,” Jack reminded him.
    “Okay, let’s call him,” his father said as he walked to the phone in the living room.
    He picked up the phone and waited for the operator to come on the line.
    “Operator,” a soft female voice said.
    “Long Distance, please,” he said.
    “Long Distance—how can I help you?” another soft female voice asked.
    “Meridian, please. I want Poplar Springs 5-3369.”
    “One moment, please.” There was a click, a hum and a pop and a ring.
    “Hello,” Red said.
    “Red—Jess. You doin’ okay?”
    “Well, Bert still won’t let me far off the leash but other than that, I’m good. What’s up, Jess?”
    “Do you remember when you were down here you told Jack and his friend Billy Joe that if they would dig a keg of worms, you would come take them fishing?”
    “Uh, yeah,” Red said tentatively.
    “They have a keg of worms out under the back steps and they asked me to call you.”
    “How in the world