I
I might begin with a recital of the conversation that led up to his
remark; but Chet has taught me the value of selection, the importance of
elimination, by the way he has of setting before me just such a curt and
poignant drama as this one was. “The last time I had a fight,” said
Chet, “was with a boy that was my best friend.”
We had been in the alder swamps and across the birch knolls all that day
after woodcock and partridge, tramping the countryside in a flood of
autumn sunshine that was more stimulating than any of man’s concoctions;
had brought home a partridge or two, and our fair allotment of woodcock;
and had dined thereafter on other birds, killed three days before, which
had been hanging since then in the cool of the deep cellar. Now our dogs
were asleep upon the rugs at our feet; our pipes were going; and the
best hour of the day was come.
“What did you fight about?” I asked.
“Fishing,” Chet told me. “We used to always fish Marsh Brook, where you
and I went last summer. Where you caught the big trout in that hole in
the woods. Remember?”