I’m Becky Thatcher. I hope you all remember me from Mark Twain’s stories about Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer. Tom Sawyer thinks I’m his girl but I’m not. There are plenty of other boys who live in Hannibal, most with fancier clothes and good manners. The funny thing is…I am missing Tom awful right now because he is having an adventure up north on the Mississippi River. He keeps sending me letters from a river town called Davenport. His spelling is real bad but he is planning some great adventures. I hope he doesn’t get into too much trouble, but he is fixin’ to sneak onto a little boat called the Channel Cat to hear some tall tales.
Tom drew a picture of an eagle with a white head in his last letter. He said it’s Huck’s most favorite bird. Those two smelly boys are going to get to see something called a raptor close up and personal while they ride that boat and hear about all of the ways that people cause those big birds trouble. That excitement is coming up real soon, at the end of June.
Tom also wrote that right after the 4th of July, he is going to listen to a fine gentleman spin yarns of moving millions and millions of mussels – the kind you eat – from one place in the mighty Mississippi to another spot all because of a bridge. I don’t know why that man would go to such lengths! The only people I know interested in mussels are the pearly button-makers and the Natives who eat the soft parts and then make things from the shells.
Tom’s last letter said that he heard tell of a place where they grow fish, called the Constellation Fish Hatchery. Who ever heard of such a thing as growing fish to sell when you can go right down to the river with your pole and line and catch more fish than you can eat for yer supper. He’s fixin’ to stowaway on the Channel Cat on the night of August30th so he can hear all about it. Then he says he’ll hop a raft back to Hannibal. I wish girls could have those adventures. Maybe I can’t join Tom, but you can learn about all this nature stuff and more with River Action.
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