A LONG, LONG TIME AGO, when young Addy was a house slave on Simon Plenty's plantation, she had to clean out the Big House, but what she loved to clean out was the river. And when she went fishing, she came home with enough catfish, bass, and brim for everyone.

  So Addy was mighty vexed when one day in early spring, when the fish should have been biting like crazy, she didn't get a single nibble.

  She was even more puzzled when a wicker basket came bobbing down the river, and in it was a little boy just smilin' up at her. She scooped him up and set him on the ground, where he cupped his hands around his mouth and called,

  "Fish, fish, where is you, fish? Jump to the wagon like Miss Addy wish!"

  Suddenly the earth began to tremble, the river began to roil, and the air was filled with fish—jumping, hopping, fly- ing right into Addy's wagon—and Addy knew for a fact that life on the Plenty Plantation was about to change!

  In this original tall tale, Jerdine Nolen has created a John Henry-sized hero with the strength of fifty men, a heart as big as all outdoors, arid a mysterious gift at spiriting slaves away to freedom.