News about the crawfish reached us much as the odor of some chemical would  have reached us that bright January morning. It was faint at first and  then seemed to vanish altogether, then returned and asserted itself with  an intensity not to be denied. This was the news: there were crawfish in  the coulée behind Gros Jeansonne's farm, and Gros had given  permission for all the neighbors who wanted to go get crawfish to pass  through his pasture.

     The mule and the mare were quickly enticed into the smaller enclosure next  to the barn and by the time my mother had changed her clothes the team  was hitched to the wagon, which  was in its traveling configuration--sporting  only the two basic panels on its sides. My two brothers were waiting impatiently,  sitting on the smooth plank which served as a second seat when inserted  between the top and the bottom of the wagon's side panels. My mother's  two large zinc washtubs and an assortment of baskets and buckets had found  their way into the wagon. Off we went, a family to the harvest. My mother  and father sat on the front seat and my two brothers and I on the back  seat. We were not alone. Four or five neighboring families, most of them  relatives, had heard the call and were responding. We made an orderly procession  of wagons in the January sunlight.  Down the gravel road and up to  Gros Jeansonne's gate we went. The gate opened and we proceeded through  his lot and to the pasture and headed toward the woods.

     The woods were really pastureland, but  recent winter rains had flooded  the area and given it the appearance of a well-kept swamp. Not wanting  to risk getting stuck in the soft earth, the entire convoy halted on the  edge of the flooded area and disembarked personnel and containers. In the  next instant someone called out that they had found crawfish, and the harvest  began!

     The crawfish were large, pale red, whitish toward the ends of their tail  shells and the ends of their pinchers. They were abundant as in a dream.  One had only to pick them up on the back of their heads, avoiding their  uplifted, supplicating paws and deposit them in bucket, basket, or tub.  The harvesting gave rise to a euphoric sense of God's goodness. In providing  these creatures in such abundance, in making them so accessible and so  yielding, God had demonstrated, by giving us these, his delectable creatures,  that he was indeed capable of miracles.

     And what feasting ensued! We who had been accustomed to getting crawfish  by fishing with pieces of chicken fat at the end of a little string in  the little stagnant bayou near our house, we who had been thrilled to have  a dozen or two of the creatures to boil on our wood-burning stove--now  we had crawfish!  We built a roaring fire under the large black pot  in which my mother boiled her clothes and which we used for cooking cracklins  at boucherie time. Into the  boiling water went our crawfish,  batch after batch. And as we ate our fill, marinating them for a short  while in vinegar and salt and pepper, there began to be talk of gumbo,  and etouffée, and pies, and jambalayas. This led to talk of canning, and,  since the season of les boucheries was not far off, whether or not  it was possible to preserve crawfish in lard.