[Illustration: 9035]
E may safely interpret a lowery day in haying time as a providential
hint to go fishing. It did not require a strong hint of this kind to
move grandfather, especially when the boy was around; for he not only
loved to fish but he loved the boy who loved to fish, and was always
planning something for his pleasure.
Why not stop for a moment just here to consider what sort of a
grandfather a boy should have? Of course he must have white hair and
a kindly face, but these are comparatively unimportant parts of his
outfit. It is the disposition that counts. He must not have nerves. The
peppery, irascible, impatient man, who growls and sputters on the least
provocation, should never set up in business as a grandfather. In order
to highest excellence he should keep the boy-spirit through all the
experiences of life. The man who has entirely ceased to be a boy is
disqualified.
This particular grandsire filled the bill completely. He never scolded,
and never even grew tired of answering questions. When the little lad
had reached the sled age, the cunning hands of his grandfather built him
one that could easily distance all competitors. When skates had become
an obsession, it was the same benefactor who invested his hard-earned
money in the most wonderful pair that the boy had ever seen, and
surreptitiously taught him to use them before the anxious mother knew
anything about it. But the crowning day among all the many that these
two spent together was that upon which the older boy taught the younger
how to use a gun. The gun was a family heirloom, and tradition said that
it had done duty in the Revolutionary War. The old flint lock had been
removed and a percussion lock substituted; but the hammer refused to
stay cocked. When it was fired, whatever might be the result to the
object fired at, no uncertainty could be felt about the consequences to
the firer; he was kicked certainly, promptly, and vigorously.
On an historic morning in the winter, when the grandfather was going
into the woods to chop, he took the boy’s breath away by saying, “If
you want to go with me to-day and take along the old shotgun, you may,
possibly, shoot a squirrel.”
Will he go? If any boy reads these lines, let him answer. Gun over
shoulder, and heart filled with infinite happiness, the boy trudges
along the road, through the fields, and into the woods on the hillside,
pouring forth a steady flow of talk. When the big beech, which the
grandfather is turning into fire-wood, is reached, a council of war is
held. Directions are given as to the proper way of handling a gun, and
especially this one. “You’ll have to hold the hammer back with your
thumb, and when you have taken good aim, let go.” Over and over again it
is impressed upon the boy that under no circumstances is he to point the
muzzle of the gun toward him.
While instructions are going on, a harsh call sounds from among the
distant trees. The boy does not need to be told that it is the cry of
the grey-squirrel, and with all the speed that caution will permit he
hurries in the direction of the hidden challenger. Every now and then he
stops to await a renewal of the cry, and then on again. Now the call is
very near, almost directly overhead. Evidently it comes from somewhere
high up in that great maple. For moments that seem hours he peers here
and there among the leafless branches. At last the flirt of a grey tail
catches his eye, and there, stretched along a limb near the top of the
trees, lies the quarry. Up goes the long-barrelled gun, but the muzzle
refuses to hold still. It describes circles and rectangles and zigzags,
but persistently avoids the squirrel. Possibly it is too heavy for the
slight muscles. Certainly the boy’s heart is beating a tattoo, and a
severe attack of “squirrel fever” has him in its grip. Just as despair
is completely overwhelming the lad, he sees a big log near by, and loses
no time in getting behind it, with the gun resting upon it and
pointing toward the tree-top. With this rest it is possible to keep the
contraptious old gun still for a minute. Carefully he pulls back the
hammer, takes a long sight over the barrel, and lets go. Have the
heavens fallen and has the world come to an end? The gun bellows, and
the boy turns a back-somersault in the snow, vaguely fancying that the
entire universe has struck him. The squirrel is forgotten for a moment
in the surprise caused by the back-action of the gun. But it is only
for a moment, and then digging the snow out of his eyes, the boy peers
anxiously up at the limb just occupied by the squirrel. It is empty. Has
he missed him? Just when humiliation begins to creep into his heart he
sees a grey heap on the snow, and sorrow turns to joy.
With gun over his shoulder and the squirrel hidden behind him, he takes
the back trail, and soon rejoins the chopper. “I heard the gun go off,”
says the old boy. “What did you shoot at?”
“A grey squirrel,” is the answer. “Missed him, eh?” This is the moment
of supreme happiness, as the concealed game is brought to the front
and the boy cries, “Missed him, did I? What do you think of that?” What
amazement, simulated or real, appears on the older face! His surprise
even surpasses the boy’s expectation. “Well! Well! If that isn’t a big
one, and you killed him all by yourself! I’ll take his hide off when we
get home and you shall have him for supper.”
It is more than probable that some dear people, if they have the
patience to read thus far, will lay down the book in disgust, saying,
“Cruel! Cruel! Boys should be taught never to take life unnecessarily.”
The writer accepts their censure with all meekness, and assures them
of his hearty sympathy. But he is writing of the boy in the open, the
out-of-doors boy, the real boy, not of a becurled and anæmic male child,
coddled and restrained and tutored until he is no more than a little
manikin. And writing of the real boy as he has been, is, and evermore
will be, it must be set down in all honesty that he loves the hunt.
But we have wandered a long way from that lowery day when grandfather
said, “Boy, I can’t work in the hay-field today; what do you say to
going over to the river fishing?” Now the boy had spent innumerable
hours on the creek that flowed past the old farm-house, and had sought
acquaintance with the bull-heads and horndace and eels for a mile in
either direction, but the river he had fished only in his dreams. He
had seen huge pickerel and giant perch which neighbours had exhibited
as spoils from this wonderful stream, and in night visions he had walked
along its banks and pulled out fish of enormous size and brilliant
colouring. Now his dreams were to come true.
In the same valley with the river, and before it was reached, was the
canal. Just below a lock, where the water looked to be infinitely deep
to the boy, the grandfather stopped and said, “We will try it here for a
while.” Nothing happened except that after feeling a tug at his line the
boy pulled it in minus a hook. “Probably a turtle,” explains the elder:
“Let’s go on to the river.” A quarter of a mile farther on and the
shining river is reached, just where a dam had been many years before.
Some of the logs remained, reaching out over the water, and upon these
the two boys seated themselves and began to fish. Memory has failed to
record all the incidents of that eventful day, but it has engraved the
picture of the long string of fish which they carried home that night.
The record is probably not any more accurate than some of which we read
now-a-days, for it declares that this string was something over six feet
long, and weighed at least a thousand pounds!
One experience of that day will not allow itself to be forgotten. The
boy hooked a fish that put up an exceptionally vigorous fight, but was
finally brought in. After it had been unhooked and was being exultantly
inspected by the younger and exhibited for the admiration of the older
boy, it gave a sudden wriggle, slipped through the hands of its captor,
and fell back into the river. Woe of woes! For the time, life was not
worth living. The biggest fish he had ever caught had gotten away! In
spite of the most heroic efforts his chin began to quiver and then
came a burst of tears. “Never mind,” said the older boy, “you’ll catch
another just as good.”
That day and that particular event came back with startling distinctness
more than thirty years later, and on the banks of the far-famed Nepigon.
The boy had long since come to be a man, and was camped with two
congenial friends at the lower end of “Pine Portage.” There had been
long days of ideal trout-fishing and nights filled with refreshing
sleep. One day an old man--apparently near to the Psalmist’s limit of
years--with his son in the prime of life, came up the river with their
Indian guides and stopped for a few hours to try the Pine Portage pool.
While the younger man fished from the canoe, the father stood upon a
rock that jutted out into the river and began casting. It was not long
before he hooked a fish which gave every indication of being a big one.
The old man fought him well. The son stopped in his casting to look on,
and the campers came down to the shore to watch the battle. Out of the
depths the gallant fish flung himself clear of the water, and then
all saw that he was of unusual size. The son hastened to the shore and
offered to take the rod and finish the contest, but the old man refused.
A half-hour passed, and then the tired fish began to show signs of
yielding and the fisherman already saw himself the proud captor of a
six-pound trout, when--it was all over. Was there a flaw in the line?
Had the aged sportsman inadvertently dropped the tip of his rod until
the fish had a straight-away pull upon the reel? No matter what the
cause, the line had parted under the last surge of the fish, and he was
lost. For a moment the old face worked strangely, and then down went the
white head, face in his hands, and we saw the shaking body as he sobbed
out his disappointment Then the son laid his hand upon the senior’s
shoulder and we heard him say, “Never mind, father, you’ll catch another
just as good.” Ten and eighty are not far apart when we go fishing.
[Illustration: 0043]
[Illustration: 0044]
_As for my chosen pursuit of angling, (which I follow with diligence
when not interrupted by less important concerns), I rejoice with
every true fisherman that it has a greeting of its own, and of a most
honourable antiquity. There is no record of its origin. But it is quite
certain that since the days of the Flood... two honest and good-natured
anglers have never met each other by the way, without crying out, “What
luck?”_--Henry Van Dyke, _Fisherman’s Luck_.
[Illustration: 0045]