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E want a quiet place, free from dudes and mosquitoes, with good good
fishing.” Thus food and spoke the tired city man to his friend, the
Preacher, and the friend answered, “I have heard of such a haven of
rest, far in the east, on the shores of Moosehead Lake.” So it came to
pass that we--Nell, little Sue and I--made the long journey of 1,500
miles on the strength of a hearsay. Risky? Yes, but the results amply
justified our faith. We found the Peaceful Valley and the House of Rest.
Picture to yourself a long, rambling structure, designed according to
no known law save that of utility. Additions have been made from time
to time to the original farm-house, resulting in a delightfully
unconventional and straggly building; an illustration in wood of the law
of evolution. Great barns stand guard on the east and south. Hard by, a
cold brook gurgles and laughs on its way to the lake a few rods distant.
Take your stand facing the west, and declare your vision. Fifteen miles
away, on the western border of the lake, Squaw Mountain lifts its ragged
line against the sky. On the left, and close at hand, bold hills bound
the view, clothed with timber to their very tips. Far to the north,
Spencer Bay Mountain lies like a giant haystack. The waters of the lake
dimple and flash in the sunlight, the air is filled with the drowsy hum
of insects, and over all is peace. In the words of the ancient hymn, one
sings,=
```"This is the place I long have sought
```And mourned because I found it not."=
Now that we are here, what shall we do? Rest? Yes, but it cannot be the
rest of inactivity. The woods are calling to us and the waters tempt us.
The trout are jumping in the pool just beyond the big stump, and a
deer is feeding in the meadow yonder. Great herons fly lazily along the
shores of the bay, or go on frog-hunting expeditions among the rushes.
Surely, there is something better to do than to loll on the porch,
and the first important task is to interview those impertinent trout.
Leaders are brought out and soaked, flies selected, the Leonard rod
jointed and everything made ready. We start for the brook which seems
to be murmuring an invitation, only to run against a very formidable
obstacle in the shape of the Maine game law. “All streams flowing into
Moosehead Lake are closed indefinitely.” Only nine words gently spoken
by the landlord, but they were of tremendous significance. A journey
halfway across the continent to fish streams that cannot be fished. The
arm of the fisherman is palsied, and his tongue cleaves to the roof of
his mouth. Is this the end of all his bright visions? A darkness like
that of Egypt settles down upon him, and all joy flees from his heart.
Silently he anathematizes the railroad companies for failing to
find space in their attractive circulars for this important piece of
information. But just when his gloom is deepest, a ray of light appears.
“Do you see that red post?” says the landlord, pointing down the stream.
“That marks the boundary between the brook and the lake. Below it you
can fish to your heart’s content.”
[Illustration: 0139]
Really, it was not as bad as might be supposed. Fish love the mouth of
a stream, and this mouth was of generous proportions and largely
patronized by the trout. Many a happy hour we spent on that stretch of
water below the post. Possibly, in the eagerness of pursuit, the fly
sometimes fell over the line into the forbidden waters; but it is not
easy to determine the exact location of an invisible boundary, and the
trout had no business to gather in town-meeting just over the line and
wink derisively at the irritated fisherman. But, on the whole, we sought
to obey the law; not alone from respect for the law, mingled with fear
of the game-warden, but, as well, because the best fishing was below the
post. Here was a half-mile of water frequented by many noble trout. We
will say nothing of the many ordinary trout taken from this stretch of
stream, but the story of the fisherman’s experience with one wary old
grandpa of the _Salvelinus Fontinalis_ family must be told.
He lived in a deep pool bordered by rushes, where a sunken tree-top
afforded an excellent hiding-place. Many smaller trout had been lured
from this retreat before the patriarch gave any sign of his presence.
One day a huge swirl and a heavy tug set the angler’s nerves to
tingling; but the line came back limp, and the disappointed disciple
of the immortal Izaak went to the house to tell of the four-pound
trout that he had hooked and lost. A week passed, during which time the
hopeful fisherman whipped every inch of that water many times, taking
not a few, but hearing nothing from the veteran for whom he longed.
Then, moved by hunger or contempt, or both, the old fellow snapped at a
“Montreal,” and the battle was on. When victory for the fisherman seemed
certain and the landing net was almost under the tired fish, he gave a
mighty surge and was gone. This time he weighed a plump five pounds on
the scales of the angler’s imagination. Other days passed, and then,
one evening just as the sun was setting, a “Silver Doctor” overcame the
wariness of the spotted warrior, and again the issue was joined between
man and trout. The fish knew that there was safety in the sunken
tree-top, and made heroic efforts to reach it; but the fisherman
knew this also, and met every rush by giving the butt of the rod. The
boarders on the hotel veranda saw the conflict and shouted encouragement
to the anxious angler. Canoeists stopped at a respectful distance to
watch the struggle. Nell was at the oars and kept the boat well out in
the middle of the pool. The light rod bent almost double as the sturdy
fighter made his great rushes for liberty. The reel buzzed as the fish
carried out the line, or clicked gently as the fisherman worked the
captive towards the boat.
Any one of a great number of things may happen at such a time. The hook
may tear out, slack line is fatal, the line may break, the snood or
leader may part, the rod may give way, an earthquake may chance along;
in short, there is no catastrophe which is not liable to occur when you
have a big fish at the other end of a line. The worst of it is that all
these possibilities visit the mind of the fisherman at once. There is
one other possibility; namely, that you may land the fish. That is
just what happened this time; and when he was fairly in the net that
fisherman let forth a whoop which must have scared the foxes on Deer
Island, three miles away. How much did he weigh? Such inquisitiveness
is really painful; but if you must know, the scales said two pounds,
fourteen ounces. All fishermen will understand that a fish shrinks
rapidly after being taken from the water, and it must have been at least
ten minutes after his capture before he was weighed. This accounts for
some things.
Will some wise man rise up and explain the puzzling vagaries of the
trout? Why does he strike freely at a certain fly one day, and entirely
ignore it on the day following? Why will he sulk for hours, and then
make the water boil with his acrobatic exercises? One morning, when all
the signs were propitious, Mr. D. and the writer sought the mouth of
South Brook, a place famous in all this region for the number and size
of its trout. Mrs. N., a veteran angler and successful, was just leaving
in deep disgust. She had been fishing since five o’clock and not a
strike had rewarded her patient toil. One hour, two hours, we cast in
vain. We might as well have been fishing in the Dead Sea so far as any
signs of trout were concerned. Under the overhanging alders, by the side
of old logs, up close to the bridge, down where the stream meets the
bay, back and forth we went, but all in vain. At last, over by the big
rock, a splash is heard and the widening ripples tell that a trout has
jumped. Quietly we seek the spot. When some forty feet away the flies
are sent on their mission, and then follows an experience that cannot be
put into words. For fifteen minutes the water fairly foams, as the eager
fish leap for the fantastic creations which are supposed to resemble
different forms of insect life. The sport is fast and furious. Ten feet
of line is as good as fifty, and a frayed fly is as acceptable as a
fresh one. They seem to be fighting for the first chance at anything
that is offered. Singles reward every cast, and doubles are not
infrequent. Three of the number taken, go over a pound and a half each,
and not one falls under half a pound. A quarter of an hour of this
delirium, and then it is all over. We whip in vain for another hour, and
turn towards the hotel, puzzled but happy.
Only a little time have we been in the Peaceful Valley, when moose
stories begin to circulate. The rumour goes that Mr. P., a camper, has
seen a bull moose in the north meadow, and watched him feed for more
than an hour. Louise, the dining-room girl, declares that she frequently
sees a moose feeding in the “logan” when she rises about daybreak.
(Will some etymologist settle the derivation of that word “logan”? About
Moosehead it seems to be applied to a bay of any sort or condition. Is
it a corruption of “lagoon”?) The Higher Critic kindly calls attention
to the evident unreliability of these stories. We know the habits of
the moose. It is a shy animal, and seldom comes out into the open. If it
should venture out it most certainly would not approach a summer hotel.
Granting that some demented specimen might visit a clearing in which
is a hotel, it would do so only under the protection of darkness. The
stories are evidently mythical. Only a few days later the Higher Critic
receives a distinct jar when he is awakened at early dawn one morning by
a tapping at his door and hears a low voice saying, “There’s a moose in
the logan!” The shadows of night are not entirely gone, but it is light
enough to see distinctly the dark object standing in the water
and tearing at the lily-pads. A cow? Too large and too high at the
shoulders. A horse? No horse ever had such ears or such a head. Although
the H. C. has never before seen a moose outside of a zoological garden,
one glance convinces him that his theory is seriously damaged.
A few days later, as the guests are eating their midday meal, the small
boy rushes into the dining-room and shouts, “Moose in the logan!” In
an incredibly short space of time the boarders have exchanged the
dining-room for the garden fence, and are looking down upon such a sight
as even dwellers in the Peaceful Valley seldom see. In the middle of the
logan, and not more than forty rods away, stands a cow moose with her
calf by her side. The mother plunges her muzzle into the water in search
of food, lifts her head and munches for a time, and then repeats the
process. All the time the tail is switching at the flies, and the great
ears are slowly moving back and forth. Neither mother nor child seems
to pay any attention to the spectators, and both remain perfectly
unconcerned until the small boy begins to whistle and shout. Then,
without any signs of fear, they walk out of the water, trot slowly
across the meadow and disappear in the woods. The H. C. sadly lays his
theory away in the mausoleum where so many of its kindred rest.
By this time some reader is saying, “I don’t care anything about the
moose, and less about the fishing. Didn’t you go anywhere? Didn’t you
see anything worth writing about?” The rebuke is deserved, and the
writer hastens to say that Moosehead Lake is forty miles long and
fifteen miles across in the widest part, having an estimated shoreline
of something like 400 miles. We saw it all, from Greenville to Southeast
Carry; but he would be a brave man or a rash one, who would undertake to
put its beauty into words. We drove to Roach River and, from the
neighbouring hilltop, looked down upon the sparkling waters of Roach
Pond and away across miles of forest to mighty Katahdin. We followed the
old lumber roads into the depths of the wood, where the silence is
broken only by the chatter of the red squirrel or the harsh cry of the
bluejay. In the cool evenings we sat around the wood fire that crackled
and leaped in the great open fireplace in the House of Rest, and heard
the guides tell stories which would have made Baron Munchausen turn
green with envy. We even went to Mountain Pond, six miles away, and all
the way up hill. No wagon could make that trip and survive. The lazy man
had a chronic dislike to walking six miles up hill on a hot August day,
and, in a moment of forgetfulness, accepted the loan of a friend’s
horse. He had not been on a horse in fifteen years and had forgotten the
eccentric motions which that animal makes in scrambling over rocks and
corduroy roads. However, he lived to reach Mountain Pond, and spent the
night with three friends in an “A” tent. Don’t ask about the fishing,
for it is a subject upon which the writer does not care to dwell. The
wind blew a gale every hour of the day spent on Mountain Pond, and you
can safely write the sign of equation between the results of that day’s
toil and those secured by Peter and his companions engaged in a similar
enterprise.
That was a never-to-be-forgotten night. The wind roared incessantly
among the trees, the tent shook and flapped, an obtrusive root insisted
upon being familiar with our ribs, and, to complete the enjoyment, a
hedge-hog made us a call. That call afforded the one bit of comfort in
an otherwise dreary night. To see the artist, in scanty attire, chasing
that hedge-hog around the camp-fire at two o’clock in the morning was
a sight to warm the cockles of the heart. To the artistic temperament
there was nothing attractive in slaughter, but if the well-armed
marauder could be caught alive and taken down to the hotel, that would
be worth while. Finally, a well-aimed blow stunned the animal and he
was hastily thrust under an empty box with a sufficient number of stones
piled upon it to prevent it from being overturned by any exertion on the
part of the captive. When daylight came, the box was in its place, but
the hedge-hog had gnawed his way to liberty. That we did not extract his
teeth before imprisoning him was a fatal oversight.
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