and pondered. If the show of confidence in you was genuine, how
gratified and proud you felt! But was it? Father went on soberly eating;
mother, transparent soul, smiled at you, as if in reparation, and winked
both eyes.
You grinned confusedly, and bent again to your plate. Yes, they were
making fun of you. But who cared! And you had mental revenge in the
thought that perhaps you’d _show_ them.
You turned in early, as demanded by the strenuous day ahead. To turn you
out no alarm-clock was necessary. The sun himself was just parting the
pink hangings of the east, and on earth apparently only the roosters and
robins were astir, when, with a hazy recollection of having fished all
night, you scrambled to the floor and into your clothes.
Mother’s voice sounded gently outside the door.
“Johnny?”
“Yes; I’m up.”
“All right. I was afraid you might oversleep. Now be careful to-day,
won’t you, dear?”
Again you assured her. You heard her soft steps going back down the
stairs. She never failed to make your rising her own, both to undertake
that you should not be disappointed and to deliver a final loving
caution.
Your dressing, although accompanied by sundry yawns, was accomplished
quickly, your attire for the day being by no means complicated. Your
face and hair received what Maggie, the girl, would term “a lick and a
promise,” and kitchenward you sped.
To delay to eat the crackers and milk that had been provided was a waste
of time; but you had been instructed, and so you gobbled them down. On
the kitchen table was your lunch, tied in shape convenient to stow about
your person. It was a constant fight on your part with mother to make
her keep your lunches at the minimum. Had she her way, you would have
traveled with a large basket; and what boy wanted to be bothered with
baskets and pails and things?
Upon the back porch, where you had stationed them in minute preparation,
had been awaiting you all night the can of bait and the loyal pole. You
seized them. Provisioned and armed, you ran into the open and looked
expectantly for Hen.
From Hen’s house came no sign of life. You whistled softly; no Hen. Your
heart sank. Once or twice before Hen had failed you. Affairs at his
house seemed to be not so systematized as at yours.
You whistled louder; no Hen. You called, your voice echoing along the
still somnolent street.
“All right,” suddenly responded Hen, sticking his head out of his
window.
He was not even up!
You were disgusted. One might as well not go fishing as to start so late
and have all the other fellows there first; and you darned “it”
gloomily.
After seemingly an age, but with his mouth full and with other tokens of
haste, Hen emerged from the side door.
“Bridget promised to call me and she forgot to wake up,” he explained.
Had Hen _your_ mother, he would have been better cared for. But, then,
households differ.
At last you were off, your jacket, necessary as a portable depository,
balanced with lunch, and the can of worms snugly fitted into a pocket,
over the hard-boiled eggs; your mighty pole, become through many
pilgrimages a veteran, sweeping the horizon; and your gallant old straw,
ragged of contour and prickly with broken ends, courting, like some
jaunty, out-at-the-elbow, swash-buckler cavalier, every passing breeze.
As you and Hen hurried along, how you chattered, the pair of you, with
many a brag and “I bet you” and bit of exciting hearsay! How big you
were with expectations!
“By jinks! I pity the fish to-day!” bantered “Uncle” Jerry Thorne, hoe
in hand in his garden patch, stiffly straightening to watch you as you
pattered by.
You did not answer. Onward stretched your way. Moments were precious.
Who could tell what might be happening ahead at the fishing-place?
Busier cackled the town hens, into view rolled the town’s sun, from town
chimneys here and there idly floated breakfast smoke. The town was
entering upon another day, but you—ah, you were destined afar and you
must not stay.
To transport your pole, at times inclined to be unruly, with its line
ever reaching out at mischievous foliage and its hook ever leaving butt
or cork and angling for clothing, was an engineering feat demanding no
slight ingenuity. The board walk, which later would be baking hot, so
that the tender soles of barefooted little girls would curl and shrink
and seek the grass, was gratefully cool, blotched as it was with
dampness from the dripping trees. When the walk ceased, the road lay
moist and velvety, the path was wet and cold, the fringing bushes
spattered you with diamonds, and the lush turf, oozing between your
toes, gave to your eager tread.
Rioted thrush and woodpecker and all their feathered cousins; higher
into the silver-blue sky climbed the sun, donning anon his golden robes
of state; one last impatient halt, to extract your hook from your coat
collar, and now, your happy legs plashed knee over with dew and clinging
dust, you had reached your goal.
You and Hen were not the first of the day’s fishermen. As the vista of
bank and water unfolded before your roving eyes you descried a rival
already engaged. By his torn and sagging brim, by his well-worn shirt,
by his scarred and faded overalls, draggling about his ankles and
dependent upon one heroic strap, you recognized a familiar. It was
Snoopie—Snoopie Mitchell, who always was fishing, because he never had
to ask anybody’s permission.
[Illustration: “‘JUS’ A BULLHEAD’”]
Snoopie’s flexible life appeared to you the model one.
“Hello, Snoop!” called you and Hen.
“Hello!” responded Snoopie, phlegmatically, desisting a moment from
watching his cork, as he squatted over his pole.
“Caught anything yet?”
“Jus’ come,” vouchsafed Snoopie. “They ain’t bitin’ much. But
yesterday—gee! you ought to’ve been here yesterday!”
No doubt; that usually was the way when you had to stay at home.
You tugged your bait from its tight lodgment; you peeled off your coat
and tossed it aside as you would a scabbard; with feverish fingers, lest
Hen should beat you, hopeful that you might even outdo Snoopie, you
unwrapped your gallant pole of its line, and selecting a plump worm,
slipped it, despite its protesting squirms, adown the hook.
The favorite stands at this resort were marked by their colonies of
tinware—bait-cans cast away upon the grass and mud, some comparatively
bright and recent, many very rusty and ancient, their unfragrant sighs
horrifying the summer zephyrs. You sought _your_ stand and threw in.
From his stand Hen also threw in.
An interval of suspense ensued. The placid water was full of delightful
possibilities. What glided therein that _might_ be caught! You besought
your bobber with a gaze almost hypnotic; but the bobber floated
motionless and obdurate.
“Snoopie’s got a bite!”
At the announcement you darted apprehensive glances in Snoopie’s
direction. You were greedy enough to harbor the wish—but, ah!
“Snoopie’s got one! Snoopie’s got one!”
Snoopie’s pole had energetically reared upward and backward, and, as if
at its beckoning, something small, black, and glistening had popped
straight out from the glassy surface before and had flown high into the
brush behind.
Snoopie rushed after, and Hen and you discarded everything and rushed,
too.
“Jus’ a bullhead!”
So it was, and quite three inches long.
Snoopie ostentatiously strung it on a bit of cord and tethered it, at
the water’s edge, to a stake. Then he threw in again and promptly caught
another.
Somehow, Snoopie invariably did this. He was lucky in more respects than
one.
From each side Hen and you sidled toward him and put your bobbers as
near his as you dared.
“G’wan!” objected Snoopie, with shrill emphasis. “What you kids comin’
here for? Go find your own places. I got this first.”
Presently, to your agony, Hen likewise jerked out an astonished pout.
“Ain’t you had any bites yet?” he fired triumphantly at you.
“How deep you got your hook?” you replied.
Hen held his line so that you might see. To miss no chances, you
measured accurately with a reed. Once more you adjusted your cork,
moving it up a fraction of an inch, and you spat on your baited hook.
Again you threw in, landing your now irresistible lure the length of
your pole and line from the shore.
“Quit your splashin’!” remonstrated Snoopie. “I had a dandy bite, an’
you scared him away. Darn you! can’t you throw in easy?”
The ripples caused by your bobber widened in concentric circles and
died. You watched and waited. A kingfisher dived from his post upon a
dead branch, and rising with a minnow in his bill to show you how easy
it was, dashed away, laughing derisively.
With a quick exclamation, Hen swished aloft the tip of his pole.
“Golly! but I had a big nibble! He took the cork clear under!” he cried.
You wondered fiercely why _you_ couldn’t have a nibble.
As if in answer to your mute prayer, your bobber quivered, spreading a
series of little rings. An electric thrill leaped through your whole
body, and your fingers tightened cautiously around the well-warmed butt,
which they had been caressing in vain.
“I’ve got a bite! I’ve got a bite!” you called gleefully.
Hen and Snoopie turned their faces to witness what might take place.
Then your cork was stricken with intermittent palsy, and then it
staggered and swung as though it had a drop too much. Your sporting
blood aflame, you bided the operations of the rash meddler who was
causing this commotion.
The cork tilted alarmingly, so that the water wetted it all over. With a
jump and a burst of pent-up energy (no cat after a mouse could be
quicker), you whipped the heavens with your great pole; but only an
empty hook followed after.
“Shucks!” you lamented.
“Aw, you jerked too soon!” criticised Snoopie.
“Darn him! he ate all my bait, anyhow!” you declared. “See?”
[Illustration: “‘BITIN’ AGAIN’”]
With utmost speed you fitted another worm and very smoothly let down
exactly in the same spot.
Scarcely had the cork settled when it resumed its erratic movements. Its
persecutor, whatsoever he might be, was a persistent chap.
“Bitin’ again?” inquired Snoopie, noting your strained attitude.
You nodded; the moment was too vital to admit of conversation.
“I got him! I got him! I—”
You had exulted too soon. Out like a feather you had whisked the
meddlesome fellow, but in mid-air, unable to maintain the sudden pace,
he parted company with the impaling steel. Down he dropped, and while
the lightened hook went on without him he dived into the shallows where
mud meets water.
You abandoned your pole; you plunged after him. Upon hands and knees you
wallowed and grappled with him. With fish instinct, he was wriggling for
the deeps and safety. You grasped him. He slid through your clutch. You
grabbed at him again and obtained a pinching hold on his tail. He broke
the hold and was off.
“Get him!” shrieked Snoopie.
“Get him!” shrieked Hen.
Desperately you scooped up the slime. Once more you had him. He stabbed
you with his needle-like spines, but you flinched not. You hurled him
inshore and tore after, not allowing him an instant’s respite.
There! He lay gasping upon the drier bank. He had lost, and out of his
one piggish eye not plastered shut he signaled surrender.
Of the two parties to the wrestle you were much the muddier.
“How big?” queried Hen, anxiously.
“Oh, ’bout as big as the first one Snoop caught,” you replied, which was
strictly the truth.
You devoted a few seconds to squeezing your pricked thumb; then
pleasantly aware that several new arrivals were viewing your success,
you gingerly strung him and deposited him, thus secured, in his native
element. Here he flopped a moment, but finding his efforts useless,
sulked out of sight.
You baited up; you were more contented.
Two pole-lengths from shore occurred a quick splash and a swirl.
“Gee!” burst simultaneously from the three of you; and you stared with
wide eyes at the spot where the bubbles were floating.
“What was that?” ejaculated Hen.
“A big bass, I bet you,” averred Snoopie.
Nobody—within your memory, at least—ever had actually caught a “big
bass” in these haunts, but upon various occasions, such as the present
one, he had made himself known. To doubt his existence was heresy. He
was here; of course he was. Nearly to see him was an exploit
accomplished by many; nearly to catch him was accomplished by only a few
less: but really to haul him out had been accorded to none.
In the meantime he cruised about, in his mysterious way, and now and
then made a rumpus on the surface, to wring a tribute of hungry “Gees!”
from the astounded spectators of his antics.
You gripped closer your pole and barely breathed. Perhaps he was heading
in your direction; perhaps, at last, he would accept your worm, and,
glory! _you_ would be the boy to carry him through town, and home! Could
anything be more deliriously grand?
On the other hand, misery! perhaps he was heading for Snoopie or Hen.
However, he might turn aside.
Silence reigned; the atmosphere was tense with expectation. Another
swirl, a small one, off a brush-pile nearer the shore, just to your
left. Cautiously you tiptoed down there and craftily introduced your
tempting hook.
The cork vibrated. For an instant you lost your breath. The cork dipped.
You poised, rigid but alert, daring to stir not even a toe. The cork
righted, dipped again, and slowly, calmly sank into the pregnant depths.
Furiously you struck. Your good pole bent and swayed. You were wild with
excitement.
“Say! Look there! Look at John!” exclaimed Hen.
“Hang on to him! Don’t let him get away!” bawled Snoopie.
Spurred by your down-curving pole and your violent endeavors, they
scampered madly to your succor.
“Don’t you give him slack!” instructed Snoopie. “He’ll get loose!”
“Don’t bust the pole, either!” warned Hen.
As for you, you were fighting with all your strength. The line was taut,
sawing the water, as valiantly you hoisted with the writhing tip. Your
antagonist yielded a few inches, only to demand them back again. You
were in deadly fear lest the hook would not hold. You hoped that he had
swallowed it. But who might tell?
At any rate, you were determined that he should not have a vestige more
of line if you could help it.
“Can you feel him?” asked Hen.
“Uh huh,” you panted affirmatively.
“Gim_me_ the pole,” ordered Snoopie.
You shook your head. You wanted to do it all yourself.
Little by little, in response to the relentless leverage that you
exerted, your victim was being dragged to the surface. Higher and higher
was elevated your pole, and the wet line followed. The cork appeared and
left the water. Victory was almost yours, but you would not relax.
“It’s nothin’ but a snag!” denounced Snoopie.
You would not believe. It was—if it was not the big bass, it was
something else wonderful.
A second—and up through the heaving area upon which were fixed your eyes
broke a black stem. Swifter it exposed itself, and suddenly you had
hoisted into the sunlight an ugly old branch, soaked and dripping,
wrenched by your might from the peaceful bed where it long had lain.
Amid irritating jeers you swung it to shore.
“Well, I _had_ something all right—and it was a bass, too; and he
snagged my hook on me. He took the bobber under in less’n no time, I
tell you!” you argued defensively.
That was a favorite trick of the “big bass” and other prodigies of these
waters—to be almost caught and to escape by cleverly snagging the hook.
[Illustration: “YOU LUXURIOUSLY DINED”]
Hen and Snoopie returned to their stations. You ruefully twisted your
hook from the rotten wood and tried in a new place for bullheads.
You tired of this location and changed to a log; and tiring of the log,
you changed to a rock; and tiring of the rock, you changed to a jutting
bank; and tiring of the bank, you waded into the shallows, where, at
least, the flies could not torment your legs. In the course of your
wanderings your can toppled; you snatched at it but it evaded you,
gurgled, and gently sank beneath. You borrowed bait from more or less
unwilling brethren, or appealed to the most respectable of the riffraff
cans scattered about. From the zenith the sun glared down upon your
neck, and from the water the sun glared up into your face, and neck and
face waxed red and redder; turtles poked their heads forth and inspected
you; and dragon-flies darted at your bobber and settled upon it, giving
you starts as you thought for an instant that you had a bite. You
pricked your fingers on the “stingers” of vengeful victims, and you cut
your feet on tin and shell and sharp root and branch; you luxuriously
dined on butter-soaked bread and salt-less eggs (the salt being
spilled), and you drank of water which, in these scientific later days,
we know with horror to have been alive with deadly bacilli; and Snoopie,
lying on his back, with his hat over his eyes, tied his line to his big
toe and went to sleep.
Finally, spotted with mud and mosquito-bumps, scarlet with burn and
bristling with experiences, in the sunset glow homeward you trudged,
over your shoulder your faithful pole, and your hapless spoil, ever
growing drier and dustier and more wretched, dangling from your hand.
“Mercy, John! What _do_ you bring those home for!” expostulated mother,
from a safe distance surveying your catch, none thereof longer than a
clothes-pin.
“Why, to eat,” you explained.
And she fried them for you, her very self.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
IN SOCIETY
------------------------------------------------------------------------
IN SOCIETY
YOU looked fine; simply fine! And well you might, for had you not just
gone through with the ordeal of an extra bath—a process which even when
regular and weekly nagged you almost beyond endurance, and now as a
superfluity certainly ought to bring recompense. It seemed to you that
if a boy went swimming summers, during the season intervening a good
scrubbing as far as half-way down his neck should answer all purposes.
With your face shining like a red apple, with your hair slickly
brushed—by mother, and your fresh waist neatly adjusted—by mother, and
your Sunday jacket and knickerbockers faithfully brushed—by mother, and
your shoes blacked and harmoniously buttoned—by mother again, there you
stood between mother’s knees while she coaxed into an expansive knot
your blue polka-dotted tie.
Then she turned you about for inspection.
“Well, well!” commented father, in acknowledgment of your effect.
Mother settled your hat delicately upon your smooth crown.
“Now, be a good boy,” she cautioned. “Be polite, and don’t be rough in
your play, and remember to say good-night to Helen and her mama, and
don’t act greedy when the things to eat are passed.”
She kissed you, and father kissed you, and escorted to the front door
out you strutted.
“Be a good boy!” called mother after you.
You decorously yodeled for Hen; Hen, arrayed, like you, in purple and
fine linen, decorously made exit and joined you; and decorously the two
of you walked side by side up the street, bound for the “Daner party.”
Along the way, restrained by your feeling of spick-and-spanness from
customary gambolings, you and Hen sought relief in a preliminary review
of the prospective menu.
“I bet you we have ice cream—I seen Mr. Daner orderin’ it!” avowed Hen,
by his abundance of enthusiasm atoning for his lack of grammar.
“Gee! I hope it’s chocolate!” you exclaimed.
“Or strawberry an’ vaniller mixed!” supplemented Hen, with a smack of
anticipation.
You “geed” again, and offered an unvoiced prayer that, whatever the
flavor or flavors, the dishes be large.
On ahead was disclosed the house of the party. It was lighted from top
to bottom, and at the impressive sight your courage, buoyed in vain by
ice-cream, chocolate, or strawberry and vanilla mixed, began to sink.
“You go in first,” you suggested to Hen.
“Naw, sir! _You!_” objected Hen. “You know ’em better’n I do.”
“But I’ll keep right close behind. Honest, I will,” you promised.
“You wouldn’t, either. You’d run off and leave me alone!” accused Hen,
suspicious and diffident.
With the question of precedence still unsettled, slowly and more slowly
you and he approached. Hanging to the palings of the fence, in front,
were the luckless (and invidious) uninvited; among them Snoopie
Mitchell, of course. Snoopie never missed anything, if within his reach,
and he wore the same clothes wherever he went, be it fishing or into the
_crème de la crème_ of civilization.
Your arrival was the signal for a shrill chorus of jeering cries; why,
nobody may know; yet they caused you to flush with an unreasonable sense
of shame.
“Hello, Jocko!” greeted Snoopie, affably (Jocko, and not, as stated the
family Bible, John, being your actual name).
“Hello!” you responded feebly.
“Hello, Hen!” continued Snoop, determined to be impartial.
“Hello!” said Hen, also feebly.
“Ain’t you goin’ in?” queried Snoop. “G’wan in! What you ’fraid of?”
“G’wan in yourself!” you retorted.
“Well, I would if I was dressed up, you bet!” asserted Snoopie—oblivious
of the fact that he was not expected.
“Huh!” scoffed Hen. “You ain’t invited! Ya-a-ah!”
“I know it; but I could have been if I’d wanted to!” declared Snoopie,
insinuating his superiority. “I wouldn’t go to their old party!”
“Good reason why!” scoffed you and Hen.
This brief exchange of courtesies having been accomplished, attended by
mocking tongues and glances you two proudly entered the gate, leaving on
the outside these your social inferiors, and advancing up the walk,
studiously elbow to elbow, mounted the porch steps.
“You ring!” insisted Hen.
“No! You!”
Whereupon, in the midst of the discussion the listening door opened, and
into the dazzling interior you sidled together, and red as peonies
received your welcome.
* * * * *
On the one side of the parlor were clustered the girls, a close
corporation in stiff little dresses and stiff big sashes, and locks
wonderfully curled or tied with ribbons. They whispered and giggled. On
the opposite side were banded the boys, in embarrassing Sunday clothes
and squeaky shoes. And they whispered and sniggered.
Betwixt this side of the parlor and that stretched a seemingly
impassable chasm, which must be bridged. Upon busy Mrs. Daner,
engineer-in-chief of the occasion, devolved the task of establishing
communication.
“Clap-in and clap-out!” she heralded briskly.
The little girls were hustled, still giggling, into the adjoining room,
and the folding doors were drawn. You boys waited. Presently the doors
parted for a crack, and Mrs. Daner, as official announcer, called,
between them:
“Harry Peters!”
“Aw, Harry!” derided you all. Assisted by obliging hands, Harry stumbled
through the crack, and the doors met behind him. You in the outer room
listened breathlessly. An instant—and then came a tremendous burst of
clapping and laughter, and Harry, blushing and flustrated, plunged back
into your midst.
“Aw, Harry! Got clapped out! Aw, Harry!”
“I did it on purpose!” averred Harry, stoutly. “I guess _I_ knew. I
don’t want any girl kissin’ _me_, you bet!”
“Henry Schmidt!” summoned Mrs. Daner.
Hen, being notoriously afraid of girls, must have blindly plumped down
into the very first chair available, for scarcely had he entered ere out
he fled, headlong, in dire confusion, before a volley of gay voices and
staccato palms.
“Johnny Walker!”
That was you. You had been hoping, and now you had arrived. Beset by the
usual ridicule—Harry and Hen the leaders in it—reluctantly, after all,
you left the safe society of your fellows, and slipping through the
fateful crack uncertainly looked about you.
The atmosphere was distinctly feminine. Fourteen little girls stood each
behind an empty chair, in almost a circle, and eyed you roguishly.
Nobody spoke. You felt as graceful as a hippopotamus and twice as large.
Your wandering glance fell upon Mary Webster. Mary nodded invitingly.
And upon Lucy Rogers. Lucy stared at you with intense soberness.
“Hurry up, Johnny. Choose a chair,” urged Mrs. Daner, she being, among
her other functions, the discourager of hesitancy.
Poor soul, it devolved upon her to see that the programme moved forward
swiftly, so that no one, from the belle and the beau to the fat and the
cross-eyed, should be slighted through lack of time.