“FISHIN’”
Youth is the time of life when perils, sorrows and battles are soon
forgotten; when joy persists, and the anticipation of some fresh thrill
is ever uppermost in the mind. As they started on the proposed fishing
trip rather late that afternoon, Tillie, to all appearances, had
forgotten her battle with the children of a rich city gambler. The
splendid black bass they had captured, the memory of the thrill of the
chase, was still with her.
“Do you know,” she said to Florence, “I think the other two bass are
larger, much larger? Perhaps one is a five pounder.
“We are going to have a grand time!” she enthused. “There are two big
muskies lurking in those weeds. I saw them once. They may strike to-day.”
“You don’t think those hateful people will come back?” Florence wrinkled
her brow.
“Guess we gave ’em enough!” Tillie clipped her words short.
“You said they’d ruin you.”
“Mebby they can’t.” Tillie’s strong arms worked fast at the oars.
They arrived at the fishing hole. Once more the conditions were ideal.
Dark, slaty clouds lay spread across the sky. A slight breeze roughened
the surface of the water. Such water as it was! Gray, shadowy water that
suggested fish of immense proportions and infinite fighting power.
The whispering rushes, the gurgling water, the bobbing dragon fly, were
all there.
“As if we had been gone but an hour,” Florence said, as she dropped the
anchor.
“Yes,” replied Tillie, “this old bay changes very little. I climbed up on
Gull Rock to steal a gull’s eggs when I was three. And there it stands
still. And still the gulls lay their eggs there. Only difference is, I
have learned how foolish it is to steal their eggs.”
She baited her hook with a large minnow, drew out her line until thirty
feet of it hung loosely coiled in her left hand; then with a deft toss
landed the minnow thirty feet from the boat.
“There,” she sighed, “right over there.”
Florence was obliged to satisfy herself with a shorter cast.
“Do you know,” said Tillie, and the sound of her voice glided along like
the air of some old song, “this has been my fishing hole ever since I was
old enough to paddle the first little tub of a boat I ever owned? But
it’s never lost its mystery, this hole hasn’t.
“There have been times when I thought I knew all about it. I’ve skated
over it in winter when the ice was like glass. I could see every stone,
every stick and log at the bottom. I peered in between every little
forest of pikeweed and said, ‘Nope, there’s nothing there.’
“There have been times in summer when the surface of the water was smooth
as a looking-glass. Then I peeked around in every little corner down
there in the depths of it, and I said, ‘Ah, ha! At last I have you! I
know all about you. You’re only a hole full of water with a sandy bottom
and a shelving bank. You’re full of weeds and other common things.’
“Just about then the sun goes under a cloud. A little breeze ripples the
water. I can’t see a thing. I wait. The rain comes pattering down. I put
a shiny minnow or a dark old crawdad on my hook and throw it far out over
the edge of the old fishing hole. Pretty soon the line starts stealing
away. My reel goes round and round, silent as a whisper. Then of a sudden
I jerk. I begin reeling in. A beautiful thing all green and gold leaps
from the water. But I have him still.
“‘Ah!’ I cry. ‘A black bass. Where did he come from? The old fishing
hole, to be sure.’ And right away that old pool with its mysterious
blue-green top of rippled, spattered water is as full of mystery as it
ever was.”
“Isn’t it wonderful to have such a fishing hole!” Florence enthused.
“Don’t all boys and girls have fishing holes?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“In the cities, of course not. It’s too bad.”
For a time after that they were silent. It was Florence who broke the
Sabbath-like stillness of the old fishing hole.
“People,” she mused, “are very much like fishing holes. You have a
friend. You are with him a great deal. He tells you all he can about
himself. He turns the light of truth upon himself and allows you to gaze
into the very depths of his soul. At last you say, ‘There is no mystery
left in his being. I know it all.’ Then of a sudden, in time of joyous
tempest, splendid success or dark storm of disappointment and sorrow, in
a moment demanding heroic courage, he shows you in an instant that there
are possibilities in his being of which you never dreamed.
“Cities are like that, too,” she went on. “Take the great city I call
home. It’s a very plain city where millions toil for their daily bread.
I’ve been all over it. I often say to myself, ‘There is no further
mystery in this city.’ I have no more than said it than I come upon a
Chinatown, a theatre, a court room, some dark place at night where such
persons meet as I have never known. Then that old city seems to look up
and laugh as it exclaims, ‘No mystery!’”
“It must be wonderful to explore such a city!” Tillie’s words were filled
with longing.
“Perhaps,” replied Florence, “we can do it together some time.”
A large perch took Florence’s minnow. She reeled him in and threw him in
the live-net.
“Probably all I’ll get,” she commented, “but they are fine fried brown in
butter.”
“None better.”
Tillie lost her minnow. A second and a third disappeared into that dark
expanse.
“Somebody’s stealing my bait.” She selected a very large minnow and
hooked it on with meticulous care. Then out into the deep he went to join
his comrades.
The manner in which he did this was startling in the extreme. Hardly had
he hit the water than Tillie’s reel flew round and round, quite beyond
control. With a quick glance toward the sky, she assured herself that
some thieving bird had not seized her bait, then she pressed a thumb on
her reel as she seized the handle to end its wild flight. Fortunately her
line was long and strong. She had the fish under control in another
moment.
But to play him, to land him—that was the problem.
“What is he?” Florence asked in an awed whisper.
“Who knows?”
Tillie reeled him in for twenty yards, then let him take the line slowly
out.
“Tire him out,” she explained.
This she repeated three times. Then as a look of fixed determination
settled on her face she said quite calmly:
“The landing net.”
Florence was ready. Settling her feet firmly, Tillie began to reel in.
The manner in which she reeled in that mysterious monster was a thing to
marvel at. And he came, foot by foot, yard by yard, fathom by fathom,
until a great gaping mouth appeared close to the surface.
“A pike!” Tillie’s voice betrayed her disappointment. “But he’s a darb.
We must have him. Get ready. When I give him line, get the net ahead of
him.”
Florence obeyed with trembling fingers. She was a second too late. Tillie
did not give the powerful fish line. He took it. Grazing the rim of the
landing net, he shot away, taking fathoms of line with him.
The process of wearing him out was repeated. Once again he was brought to
the side of the boat. This time Tillie gave him very little line.
Unfortunately it was not enough. As his head shot toward the landing net,
the hook that protruded through his jaw caught on the rim of the net.
There was a thundering of water, a whirlpool of white spray, and he was
gone.
“Dumb!” exclaimed Tillie, throwing down her rod.
“Lost him!” Florence dropped the net. “But then,” she added, “a pike’s no
good except to look at.”
“That’s right,” agreed Tillie. “And we came out here for a big black
bass. We’ll have him too!” She baited her hook anew.
An hour passed, and another. The sun hung for a time above the cedars,
then slowly sank from sight. The water turned golden, then red, then
steel blue. Still they fished on.
The number of fine perch, nine, ten, twelve inches long, which Florence
dropped into the live-net, grew and grew. Tillie flung hers overboard in
great contempt, as soon as they were hooked, and grumbled because they
took her bait.
“Do you know,” said Florence teasingly, “I believe I have five pounds of
fish? You have tried all afternoon for a five pounder, and got nothing.
In life one should humbly accept that which comes, and hope for bigger
things.”
“I wonder.” Tillie studied her face with tired eyes. “I wonder if that’s
so, or do you win best if you insist on having only the big things?”
“I suppose,” Florence replied, “that one does that which one’s nature
demands. I can’t throw a good perch away. You can’t keep one. It’s a
queer old world.”
“It is!” Tillie punctuated her remark with a vigorous overhand throw that
landed her minnow far out into the darkening water.
“Watch!” she exclaimed a moment later. “See that line go out! It’s a
bass!”
There is nothing sweeter than the swift run of a bass before he turns his
minnow and swallows it.
Zing! Tillie snapped the line. “Hooked!” she exclaimed, planting her feet
far apart.
The ripples had subsided. The water was like polished steel at the
surface. Yet one could see far into those mysterious depths.
“See!” she exclaimed tensely. “I’ve got him! The big one! And how meekly
he comes in!”
What she said seemed true. She was reeling in rapidly. At the same time a
monster of the lake, such a bass as Florence had never dreamed of, came
racing toward the boat.
Three yards, five, he shot forward. Florence stared. The expression on
Tillie’s face was a strange thing to see. Hope, joy, triumph vied there
with fear, distrust, despair. It was her great chance. She had staked all
in the one cast. Was she to win or lose?
During all this time the afterglow of the sun had lighted the water. In
an instant, without warning, it faded and near darkness came. Not so
soon, however, but that the girls were able to witness a strange sight.
With a sudden stop and whirl, the big bass changed course and shot away.
But Tillie’s reel? It did not spin. She still reeled in. A steady tug
held her line taut. Ten seconds later a beautiful green-tinted bass,
weighing perhaps a pound, broke the water and landed with scarcely a
struggle in the boat.
What had happened? This little one and the giant companion had fought for
the deadly minnow. He had won.
For fully half a minute, while the end of twilight became night, Tillie
stood staring at her catch. He had flapped himself loose from the line
and lay there in the boat snapping about.
Suddenly she seized him and threw him far into the rushes. Then she
dropped into a seat to hide her face in her hands.
Tillie was of the emotional type. Some people are. What of it? Theirs is
the privilege to weep or to shout for joy. Tillie wept.
But what was this? Of a sudden their boat gave a lurch that sent Florence
sprawling over the stern seat.
What had happened? Her eyes told her in an instant. Her heart went to her
throat. A speed boat, with power shut off, had glided upon them
unobserved. The now invisible occupants had seized their anchor line,
then started their powerful motor. They were now headed for the outermost
point of land and the open sea.
“They’ve got us!” Tillie exclaimed. “They’ve got us!”
“Who?” Florence screamed. “In the name of all that’s good, who?”
Tillie did not reply. She was making her way forward.