Forty years ago—a big slice off the long end of one’s life! A broad
river with its low-lying south shore heavily timbered and rich in early
summer verdure; a long bridge with a multitude of low stone piers and
trestle-work at top; in midstream, two miles away, the black hull and
tall masts of a man-o’-war, lying idly; between and beyond, the smooth
bosom of the blue expanse dotted with fishing sloops under
weather-beaten wings, moving lazily hither and yon; to the north, but
invisible save a straggling outer edge of tumble-down houses—a
possibility then—now, “they tell me,” a magnificent city; a decayed
wharf with no signs of life, and draped in tangled sea-weed that came in
with the last tide, the jagged and blackened piles stand brooding over
the solemn stillness like melancholy sentinels sorrowing over a dead
ambition. The ripple of the waves is a melody and the air is fragrant
with a brackish sweetness.
It has been a bright day, and the afternoon shadows are beginning to
lengthen. They suggest to some another day’s work nearly finished,
another week drawing to a close; Saturday night, home and rest. To
others they suggest—well, let that pass. To a little fellow, barefoot,
coatless and with a ragged straw hat, who crawls out from one of the
center piers of the old bridge, these shadows of the closing May day are
ominous, yet his forebodings are not unmixed with the rose-hued pleasure
of a day well spent. He did think of that river below him, twenty-five
feet deep, but that was an attraction. He did think of the very near
future and—but no matter; his thoughts were bright enough as he hauled
up after him a string of perch as long as his precious body, and as a
fit climax to his magnificent catch, an eel at least two and a half feet
long and thick as his captor’s arm. What a struggle he had enjoyed with
that eel before he got it to the top of the pier. His hand-line was a
hopeless snarl; twice he had come within a hair’s-breadth of going
overboard, but the unfortunate eel had succumbed to juvenile activity
and zeal. What ten-year-old could boast comparison, as with the day’s
trophies over his shoulder he plodded his way home? He felt himself an
object of interest and envy to his fellows, and told with condescension,
not arrogance, his experience with that eel.
Success will often take an old boy, let alone a young one, off his feet;
it sometimes leads to indiscretion and results in worse than failure,
and again is the cornerstone of a noble monument. That boy had fished
with success off that pier more than once, but had kept his fishpole and
had left the evidences of his disobedience at a friendly neighbor’s.
This day he marched straight home, fishpole and all. The sable ruler of
the kitchen confirmed, upon sight, the lurking apprehension that would
not down in spite of triumph.
“Ah, honey! Whar’s you bin dis livelong day? Miss Mary’s gwine to give
it to you. We’s been ahuntin’ an’ trapsin’ all ober dis here town, an’
yo’ pa—he was jes’ gwine——.”
But the “ambiguous givings out” of the sable goddess were cut short by
the appearance of Miss Mary in person. She was a stately dame in those
days, with a wealth of dark hair and with brown eyes that had in them,
ah, such a world of love for that barefoot, white-haired urchin. And she
had, too, a quiet way of talking that went right into the little
fellow’s ears and down about his heart and lingered there. No need to
ask him where he had been; she only looked at him and the fish, a
serious, yet a loving look withal, took his hand and led him in to the
head of the family. Court was at once convened.
“What _shall_ we do with this boy?”
He to whom this inquiry was addressed took in the situation at a glance.
The glance was a dark one, but it quickly showed the silver lining.
“Wash him, and give him some clean clothes.”
“But,” she remonstrated, “this will never do; he will be drowned some
day. How often must I forbid you going near the river?”
“I dun’no, mother.”
“What is that round your leg?”
“An eel skin.”
“Why did you tie it there?”
“To keep off cramp.”
“Keep off cramp! What does the boy mean?” There was a look of wonderment
in the brown eyes, and of merriment in the grey. The colored member of
the court volunteered an explanation, and wound up with the prophecy:
“Dat chile’ll neber be drownded, Miss Mary; I tell you so long as he
wear dat eel skin he’ll nebber hab de cramp, an’ he kin swim; you ha’ar
me, Miss Mary. Why, bless yo’ stars, honey, dat chile done swim dat
ribber las’ Saturday, he did; I heerd ’em tellin’ it.”
“Heard who telling it?” broke in the president.
“Why, de chillun, ob cose. Dat Buckingham boy he bantered the chile an’
took his close ober in de skiff, and Mar’s Lou, he done follered, he
did, an’ dat ribber a mile wide.”
The animated and confident manner of Jane did not lessen the anxious,
even horrified, expression in the brown eyes, but the grey were a study
as the owner drew the abashed urchin to him, with the inquiry:
“Is it true, my boy?”
“Yes, father.”
“Go bring me your fishing tackle.”
It was a sorry looking outfit—a fraction of a cane pole, about ten feet
of a common line, and an indifferent hook looped on the end. The hand
line was of better material, but a wreck—a very Gordian knot. They were
dubiously but promptly passed over for inspection.
“Throw these into the stove—and, Jane, you make kindling wood of this
pole.”
“Oh, father!” The boy’s lips quivered, the eyes filled, but the owner of
the grey eyes gently held back the appealing hand that would have
rescued the precious treasures.
“Hold on, my boy; do not misunderstand; papa will trust you; you shall
have the best tackle in town.”
“Why do you deal with the boy in this way?” remonstrated the mother.
“Why? Because I myself was a boy once, and I don’t want to forget it.”
The grey eyes were the first to close—it is many a long year since—and
the old boy’s fill a little now, as he reverently thinks of that day.
But the boy drifted with the tide, over the Blue Ridge and the
Alleghenies, and twenty odd years ago he anchored in the wilderness,
where Denver now stands, to surprise you folks from down East.
Do we have fishing in the Rocky Mountains? Aye, that we do, and right
royal sport it is.
One day, nineteen years ago this summer, a neighbor came into my cabin
and wanted to know of a young married woman there if she could not spare
her Benedict for, say three days. He was fish hungry, this neighbor; was
going off into the mountains, and wanted company. Of course she could;
was glad to be rid of him. And so early next morning old Charlie was
hitched to the buckboard. At five o’clock that same day there was a tent
pitched in a little valley upon Bear creek, thirty-five miles from home,
with two pairs of blankets, a coffee pot, two tin cups and a frying pan;
not a soul or a habitation within twenty miles of us; a beautiful
mountain stream, clear as crystal, cold as ice, and teeming with trout.
What would you have, money? Why, bless your soul, money was at a
discount; there were acres of it a little way off, only for the digging.
In those days fishing tackle was scarce, and a plum-bush pole and linen
line were the best in the land. Flies were a novelty to me, but my
friend had a dozen or so, some that he had saved over from more
civilized times, and that had got out here by mistake. He divided with
me, told me to fasten one upon the end of my line and “skitter it over
the water.” This was my first and only instruction in trout fishing.
“Skittering” was as novel to me as the fish, but my Professor was a
Cambridge man with glasses, and I did not want him to feel that my
education had been entirely neglected. I took my pole and instruction in
silence, and walked a quarter of a mile up the creek. Pure instinct?
Yes, I walked up stream for the single purpose of fishing down; it came
just as naturally as swimming in deep water. I found a place clear of
bushes for a few rods, where the current swept directly into my shore
and out again, forming an eddy. I thought it a “likely place.” I gave
that plum sapling a swing and landed the fly, in which I had no
confidence whatever, just at the edge of the swirl. It had no sooner
touched the water than I saw a salmon-colored mouth, felt a tug, and the
following second my first trout was flying over my head. I deliberately
put down that pole and walked out to investigate. There was no doubt
about it; there he lay, kicking and gasping his life out on the green
grass, his bright colors more beautiful by the contrast. He was near a
foot long, and I put my hand upon him as gently as though he had been an
immortal first born. It was not a dream. When he was dead I strung him
upon a forked stick, went back to the eddy and caught three others, and
wondered if all the trout in that stream were twins. I had already
become gentler, too, even with the unwieldy plum sapling. I found their
mouths were not made of cast iron nor copper lined. By the time I had
fished down to camp, and with my ten trout, I felt equal to the business
of the morrow. My friend, of course, had better luck, having passed his
novitiate, but he complimented me in saying that I “took to it
naturally.”
Camping out was no novelty, but fresh trout was a revelation, and that
night we had no bad dreams under our canvas. The next evening found us
preparing nearly, what a Yankee would call, two patent pails, of trout
to take home to our friends and neighbors.
And here I am moved to say that ours is a noble fellowship; it is a
gentle craft we cultivate, one that should beget brotherly love and all
things charitable; and if any of you have, as I hope you have, a little
white-haired tot who seems inclined to follow you down stream upon
summer days, do not say nay, but let your prayer be: “Lord, keep my
memory green.”
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