THE FIRST CHAIN OP PONDS--SHOOTING BY TURNS--SHEEP WASHING--A PLUNGE
AND A DIVE--A ROLAND FOR AN OLIVER.
We started early the next morning up Bog River, intending to reach the
"first chain of ponds," some twenty miles deeper in the wilderness, as
the stream runs, on the banks of which our pioneer had been instructed
to pitch our tents. This day's journey, it was understood, would be a
hard one, as there were eight carrying places, varying from ten rods
to half a mile in length. The Bog River is a deep, sluggish stream for
five or six miles above the falls, just at the lake. It goes creeping
along, among, and around immense boulders, thrown loose, as it were,
in mid channel. At this distance, the stream divides, the right hand
channel leading to the two chains of ponds and Mud Lake, where it
takes its rise; and the left to Round Pond, and little Tupper's Lake,
and a dozen other nameless sheets of water, laying higher up among the
mountains. Our course lay up the right hand channel, which, for half
a mile above the forks, comes roaring and tumbling through a mountain
gorge, plunging over falls, and whirling and surging among the
boulders, in a descent of three of four hundred feet in all. Around
these, and seven other rapids of greater or less extent, our boats had
to be carried.
We reached the lower chain of ponds within an hour of sunset, and
found our tents pitched at a pleasant spot which looked out over the
easternmost one of these beautiful little lakelets. There are three of
them, connected together by narrow passages or straits, the banks of
which, as the boat glides along, the oars will touch. They are
surrounded by low but pleasant hills, so arranged as to form a varied
but delightful scenery. From the western one, the hills rise from the
water with a steep acclivity, covered with a gigantic growth of
timber, save on the northern side, where a pleasant natural meadow,
covered with rank grass and a few spruce and fir trees, stretches
away. It contains about two hundred acres, and its waters are deep and
pure. The middle one, though smaller, is equally beautiful, skirted on
three sides with wood-covered hills, and on the other by a
continuation of the same natural meadow. The eastern one, on the
western banks of which our tents were located on a beautiful little
bay, is the prettiest of them all. It contains perhaps six hundred
acres, and the scenery around it is exceedingly cheerful and pleasant.
The northern shore is bound by a natural meadow of luxuriant wild
grass, between which and the water is a hard sandy beach, at low water
some thirty feet wide, and extending between a quarter and half a
mile in length.
As we approached these ponds, the river became broad and shallow.
Natural meadows, covered with tall grass and weeds, stretching away on
either hand. When we came to this portion of the river, the oars were
shipped, and our boat-men took their seats in the stern with their
paddles. Smith was in the bow of one boat, and Spalding in that of the
other, each with rifle in hand, preparatory to the slaughter of a
deer, to provide us with venison. It was arranged that the marksman
who fired and failed to secure his game, should change places with the
one behind him, and that thus the rotation should go on, till we
should bring down a deer. We knew that we should see numbers of them
feeding along the margin of the stream, and upon the natural meadows
that skirted the shore. The stream was winding and tortuous, and at no
time could we see more than five-and-twenty rods in advance of us, so
crooked is its course.
We were moving up the stream cautiously and silently; the boatman who
had charge of the craft in which were Smith and myself, seated in the
stern, paddling, and Smith himself seated in the bow, with rifle in
hand, ready for anything that might turn up. As the boat rounded a
point, a deer started out from among the reeds on the right, and went
dashing and snorting across the river directly in front of the boat,
and five or six rods ahead, the water being only about two feet in
depth. Smith blazed away at him; where the ball went, Mercy knows; but
the deer dashed forward with accelerated speed, and a louder whistle,
and went crashing up the hill-side. Smith acknowledged to a severe
attack of the Buck fever. It was now my turn to take the next shot;
and changing places with Smith, we went ahead. In ten minutes a chance
to try my skill occurred. But it was a long shot, the game was "on the
wing," and I had no better success than did my friend. The deer only
increased the length of his bounds, and he too went plunging through
the old woods, snorting in astonishment, and huge affright at what he
had seen and heard.
Our boat now fell back, and Spalding and the Doctor took the lead. In
a short time, a deer was discovered feeding just ahead of us on the
lily pads along the shore. The boatman paddled silently up to within
eight or ten rods of him. Spalding sighted him long and, as he
averred, carefully with his rifle. The deer fed and fed on, and we
waited anxiously to hear the crack of the rifle, and see the deer go
down; but still the boat glided on unnoticed by the animal that was
feeding in unsuspecting security. At length he raised his head, threw
forward his long ears, gazed for a second intently at his enemies, and
then appreciating his danger, snorted like a warhorse and plunged in a
seeming desperation of terror towards the shore. He had ran a few rods
when Spalding let drive at him, as he confessed, at random. The ball
went wide of the mark, and the game dashed, with more desperate
energy, and whistling and snorting like a locomotive, into the brush
that lined the banks. It was Spalding's third shot in all his life at
a deer, and he insisted, gravely enough, that he did not fire while
the game was standing broadside to him, on account of his desire to
give the animal a chance for his life. The truth is, that Spalding had
a bad, a very bad attack of the aforesaid Buck fever.
The Doctor, by rotation, now became the leading marksman. He was cool
and calm, as if going to perform some delicate surgical operation. We
soon came in sight of a buck feeding in a shallow pasture, and the
boat glided quietly within fifteen rods of it. The Doctor's hand was
firm, and his aim steady. There was about him none of that nervous
agitation which is so apt to disturb the first efforts at deer
slaying. The boat came to a pause a moment, when his rule rang out
quick and sharp, waking the echoes of the mountains around and
reverberating along the shore. At the crack of the rifle, the buck
leaped high into the air, and plunged madly towards the bank, up which
he dashed with a prodigious bound, made a single jump among the tall
grass, and disappeared from the sight. The Doctor was greatly
mortified, supposing he had missed. He declared solemnly that he had
taken steady and sure aim just back of the fore-shoulders of the deer,
had a perfect sight upon it, and that it did not fall in its tracks,
could only be owing to its bearing a charmed life. The boatman,
however, knew that the animal, from its actions, was mortally wounded.
He said nothing, but paddled quietly to the shore, and there, just
over the bank, in the tall grass and weeds, lay the noble buck, stone
dead. He had gone down and died without a struggle. A proud man was
the Doctor, as he passed his hunting-knife across the throat of the
deer, and gazed upon its broad antlers, now in the velvet, pointing to
the course of the ball right through its vitals, in on one side and
out on the other. We had venison for the next four-and-twenty hours,
and we disturbed the deer no more that afternoon.
The deep baying of the stag-hounds, as we entered the little lake,
apprised us of the location of our tents, and we were glad to reach
them, and stretch our limbs upon the bed of boughs beneath them, for
the day had been warm, and our journey a weary one. Our pioneer had
made the entire journey the day before, though he had to pass over all
the carrying-places three times. We found that he had killed two deer,
and had the meat from them, cut into thin slips, undergoing the
process of "jerking," in a bark smokehouse erected near the tents. He
had also a beautiful string of trout ready for our supper, taken in a
way peculiarly his own. He had used neither bait nor fly.
After supper, as we sat looking out over the lake in front of our
tents, the Doctor inquired of our pioneer how he had taken his fish,
as he had with him neither rod nor flies, and there was no bait to be
found in the woods proper for trout.
"Why," said he, "I got lonesome yesterday, all alone up here in the
woods, waiting for you, and I thought I'd take a look around the shore
of the lake, thinking I might find a gold mine, or a pocketful of
diamonds, or something of that sort; so I took my rifle and the two
dogs, and started on an explorin' voyage. I didn't find any gold, but
I found, just across there by those willows and alders, a cold stream
entered the lake, and right in the mouth of it the trout were lyin' as
thick as your fingers. They were fine little fellows as I ever
happened to see, weighing about a quarter of a pound each. I had a
hook or two, and a piece of twine in my pocket, but they were of no
sort of use in common fishin', for I had no kind of bait, and couldn't
get any. After thinking the matter over, I concluded I'd see if I
couldn't bag some of them in a quiet way. So I cut me a long pole,
tied the hook and line to the end of it, and reaching out over the
water, dropped quietly down among them. I let the line drift gently up
against the one I wanted. He didn't seem to mind it, but was rather
pleased as the line tickled his sides. After letting it lay there a
moment, I jerked suddenly, and up came the trout clean over my head on
to the flat rock behind me. However this might have astonished him, it
didn't seem to disturb the rest. In that way I caught all I wanted,
and could have caught a bushel. It isn't a very science way of
fishin', but it answers when a man is hungry, and hasn't got any
bait or fly."
"I scarcely know why," said the Doctor, "but Cullen's account of
catching his trout, reminds me of a circumstance which occurred when I
was a boy, and which for the moment made a deal of sport. I have not
probably thought of it in twenty years, but it comes to me now as
fresh as though it were the occurrence of yesterday. It must be, as
Hank Wood said the other day, that a thing which gets fairly anchored
in a man's mind, remains there always, and covered up as it may be by
other and later things, it can never be forgotten. It will come
drifting back on the current of memory, fresh and palpable as ever.
"Everybody understands, or ought to understand, how sheep are washed.
A small yard is built on the bank of a stream adjacent to a deep
place. One side of which is open to the water, and into which the
flock is crowded. The washers take their places in the water, where it
is three or four feet deep, and the sheep are caught by others, and
tossed to them, where they undergo ablution (an operation by the way,
that they do not seem altogether to enjoy), to wash the dirt and gum
from their fleeces. On such occasions, it is regarded as a lawful
thing, a standing and ancient practical joke, to pitch any outsider,
who may happen to indulge his curiosity by stopping to look on, into
the stream. If he is verdant, he will be very likely to be inveigled
into the yard, and in an unguarded moment, be made to take an
involuntary dive, head foremost into the water.
"A few rods above the place in which my father washed his sheep, was
an old dam, the apron of which remained, and beneath which was a basin
some five or six feet in depth, and thirty or forty feet in diameter,
filled of course with water. On one occasion, a man who was employed
to catch the sheep, was one of those shiftless, good-natured, lazy
fellows, to be found in almost every neighborhood, who prefer smoking
and telling stories in bar-rooms to regular work, and who greatly
prefer odd jobs to consecutive labor. Tom G----was one of this genus,
full of fun and mischief, but without a particle of real malice in
his composition. As he was busy throwing sheep to the washers, a young
fellow from the neighboring village happened that way, and becoming
somewhat interested in the process, was seduced by Tom G----, inside
of the yard, to try his hand at catching and tossing in sheep. About
the second or third one he operated upon, his treacherous friend
stumbled against him, giving him a tremendous push, and with a sheep
in his arms he drove head foremost among the washers. The water was
cold, and there was a good deal of puffing and blowing about the time
his head came above the surface. He was a sensible chap, and took the
joke as a wise man should, especially when the odds are all against
him, albeit, it was somewhat rude.
"He came out on the other side of the stream, and after joining in the
laugh against himself, and taking off and wringing his garments, he
wandered up to the apron of the old dam, and stretching himself along
the planks, went to looking anxiously down into the deep water. After
a while, he seemed to have discovered something, and called out to his
friend below, 'I say Tom, have you got a fishhook in your pocket? Here
is a trout that will weigh two pounds, and I want to hook him up.' Now
Tom was a fisherman, and a big trout was his weakness; moreover, he
was never without half a dozen hooks and lines in his pockets. He left
his business at once, and went up to the apron to assist in taking the
two-pound trout. A pole was cut, and a couple of feet of line, with a
hook attached, was fastened a little way from the top, and the haft
of the hook stuck into the end so that by a little force it might be
removed, and Tom and his friend got upon the apron, and stooped over
to see where the great trout lay.
"'Here he is, Tom, just under the edge of this rock.' Tom stretched
himself over to get a view of the fish, when a vigorous shove from the
rear sent him like a great frog plump towards the bottom of the pool.
This was a consummation that Tom had not bargained for, but there was
no alternative but to swim for the shore, dripping like a rat from a
flooded sewer. That joke had two points to it, and Tom G----had the
worst of them."
"Your anecdote," said Smith, "reminds me of one in which I was an
actor, and which was impressed upon my mind by a process which few
boys are fond of, but which is very apt to make the impression
durable. _I_ fished for trout once without line or hook. I got a fine
string of them, and myself into a pretty kettle of fish in the
bargain. On my father's farm, as it was when I was a boy, was a stream
that came down through a gorge in the mountains that bounded the
pleasant valley in which that farm lay. In the spring freshets and the
summer rains, that stream was a mighty and resistless torrent, that
came roaring and plunging down from the plain above, cascading and
leaping down ledges and rushing though a gorge, on either side of
which precipices of solid rock stood straight up two hundred feet in
height. It was a goodly sight to see that stream when its back was up,
come rushing and foaming, a mighty flood from the deep and shadowy
gulf, rolling in its resistless course great boulders of tons upon
tons in weight, and eddying, and twisting, and roaring onward in its
furious course towards the lake. In the summer time the drouth lapped
up its waters, and it dried away to a little brook, trickling over the
falls, and went winding, a small streamlet, around the base of the
hill; sometimes it disappeared in the gravel, or among the loose
stones, save here and there a pool of narrow limits and shallow depth.
It was a fine trout stream at times. Its waters were cold and pure,
and the brook trout loved to hide away under the great smooth stones
or shelving rocks, and be comfortable in the shade, when the summer
sun was hot and fiery in the sky. When the creek was low, they would
congregate in the pools and still places, and in times of extreme
drouth, might be seen huddled together in such places in
great numbers.
"My father, though not a member of any church, was strict in his
family discipline in regard to the observance of the Sabbath, the
breach of which, on the part of his children, was very apt to be
followed by consequences not the most pleasant in the world, for he
held that a good switch was an essential article of household
furniture, and its occasional use a cardinal principle in the
philosophy of family rule. One Sunday, when I was some ten or eleven
years old, when the old people were gone to meeting (and they had to
go eight miles to find a meeting house), I, with an older brother,
tired of lying around the house, concluded to take a stroll along up
the brook. It was a time of severe drouth, and the stream was dried
up, save here and there a small pool, clear and cold, the bottom of
which consisted of smooth and clean-washed stones and pebbles. In one
of these was a number of beautiful speckled trout, averaging maybe a
quarter of a pound each in weight. Here was a temptation too strong to
be resisted. We had no hooks or lines with us, and would not have
ventured to use them _on Sunday_, if we had. That would have been
fishing. But the taking of those trout with our hands was quite
another matter. So, rolling our pants up above our knees (there was no
use of talking about shoes and stockings; such luxuries were not
within the range of indulgence to boys of our age in those days, save
in the frosts and snows of winter, and stubbed toes, stone bruises,
and thorns in the feet, come floating along down from the long past,
like shadows of darkness on the current of memory. By the way, will
some rich man, who was reared in the country in the good old times
when boys went barefooted in the summer months, when chapped feet,
stone bruises, stubbed toes, and thorns that pierced and festered in
their _soles_ were the great ills that 'darkened deepest around human
destiny,' solve for me a problem of the human mind? Will he tell me
whether, in his after life, when he was the owner of broad acres, fine
houses, piles of stocks in paying corporations, and huge deposits in
solvent banks, he ever felt richer or prouder when counting his gains,
and contemplating the aggregate of his wealth, than he did when he
pulled on his first pair of boots?) So, as I said, we rolled up our
pants, and waded in for the trout. We caught a beautiful string of
twenty or more, took them home, dressed them nicely, and sat them
carefully away in the cool cellar. We had a notion that the greatness
of the prize would wipe away the offence by which it was secured, and
that the delicious breakfast they would afford, would be received as a
sufficient atonement for the sin of having taken them on a Sunday. But
we were never more mistaken in our lives. My father went into the
cellar for some purpose in the evening, after his return from meeting,
and discovered the trout. An inquiry was instituted, our dereliction
was exposed, and we were promised a flogging. Now that was a promise,
which, while it was rarely made, was never broken. When my father in
his calm, quiet way, made up his mind and so expressed it, that he
owed one of his boys a flogging, it became, as it were, a debt of
honor, what, in modern parlance, would be termed a confidential debt,
and he to whom it was acknowledged to be due, became a prefered
creditor, and was sure to be paid.
"Well, the trout were eaten for breakfast, and after the meal was
over, my brother and myself were duly paid off, at a hundred cents on
the dollar, with full interest. That flogging cured me of 'tickling'
trout, especially on Sunday. I am never tempted to take trout with my
hands, without feeling a tickling sensation about the back; and though
old recollections of the long past, of that pleasant stream and the
gorge through which it flowed, with the side hill covered with old
forests above it, and the green fields spread out on the other side,
of the home of my boyhood, the old log-house, the cattle, the sheep,
the old watch-dog, and the thousand other things around which memory
loves to linger, come clustering around my heart, yet conspicuous
among them all, is the flogging I got for 'tickling' trout on
a Sunday."