Complete Short Stories Of Ernest Hemingway, The

“I Guess Everything Reminds You of Something” is a completed short story set in Cuba, where Hemingway made his home at the Finca Vigía from 1939 to 1959.

I Guess Everything Reminds

You of Something

“IT’S A VERY GOOD STORY,” THE BOY’S father said. “Do you know how good it is?”

“I didn’t want her to send it to you, Papa.”

“What else have you written?”

“That’s the only story. Truly I didn’t want her to send it to you. But when it won the prize—”

“She wants me to help you. But if you can write that well you don’t need anyone to help you. All you need is to write. How long did it take you to write that story?”

“Not very long.”

“Where did you learn about that type of gull?”

“In the Bahamas I guess.”

“You never went to the Dog Rocks nor to Elbow Key. There weren’t any gulls nor terns nested at Cat Key nor Bimini. At Key West you would only have seen least terns nesting.”

“Killem Peters. Sure. They nest on the coral rocks.”

“Right on the flats,” his father said. “Where would you have known gulls like the one in the story?”

“Maybe you told me about them, Papa.”

“It’s a very fine story. It reminds me of a story I read a long time ago.”

“I guess everything reminds you of something,” the boy said.

That summer the boy read books that his father found for him in the library and when he would come over to the main house for lunch, if he had not been playing baseball or had not been down at the club shooting, he would often say he had been writing.

“Show it to me when you want to or ask me about any trouble,” his father said. “Write about something that you know.”

“I am,” the boy said.

“I don’t want to look over your shoulder or breathe down your neck,” his father said. “If you want, though, I can set you some simple problems about things we both know. It would be good training.”

“I think I’m going all right.”

“Don’t show it to me until you want to then. How did you like ‘Far Away and Long Ago’?”

“I liked it very much.”

“The sort of problems I meant were: we could go into the market together or to the cockfight and then each of us write down what we saw. What it really was that you saw that stayed with you. Things like the handler opening the rooster’s bill and blowing in his throat when the referee would let them pick up and handle them before pitting again. The small things. To see what we each saw.”

The boy nodded and then looked down at his plate.

“Or we can go into the café and shake a few rounds of poker dice and you write what it was in the conversation that you heard. Not try to write everything. Only what you heard that meant anything.”

“I’m afraid that I’m not ready for that yet, Papa. I think I’d better go on the way I did in the story.”

“Do that then. I don’t want to interfere or influence you. Those were just exercises. I’d have been glad to do them with you. They’re like five-finger exercises. Those weren’t especially good. We can make better ones.”

“Probably it’s better for me to go on the way it was in the story.”

“Sure,” his father said.

I could not write that well when I was his age, his father thought. I never knew anyone else that could either. But I never knew anyone else that could shoot better at ten than this boy could; not just show-off shooting, but shooting in competition with grown men and professionals. He shot the same way in the field when he was twelve. He shot as though he had built-in radar. He never took a shot out of range nor let a driven bird come too close and he shot with beautiful style and an absolute timing and precision on high pheasants and in pass shooting at ducks.

At live pigeons, in competition, when he walked out on the cement, spun the wheel and walked to the metal plaque that marked the black stripe of his yardage, the pros were silent and watching. He was the only shooter that the crowd became dead silent for. Some of the pros smiled as though at a secret when he put his gun to his shoulder and looked back to see where the heel of the stock rested against his shoulder. Then his cheek went down against the comb, his left hand was far forward, his weight was forward on his left foot. The muzzle of the gun rose and lowered, then swept to left, to right, and back to center. The heel of his right foot lifted gently as all of him leaned behind the two loads in the chambers.

“Ready,” he said in that low, hoarse voice that did not belong to a small boy.

“Ready,” answered the trapper.