Forgotten Treasures #11: PLAIN FISHING--PART 2

Part 2.

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Out from his dark retreat now came the trout, and settling quietly at the
bottom of the brook, he appeared to regard the venturesome insect with a
certain interest. But he must have detected the iron-barb of vice beneath
the mask of blitheful innocence, for, after a short deliberation, the trout
turned and disappeared under the bank. As he slowly moved away, he seemed to
be bigger than ever. I must catch that fish! Surely he would bite at
something. It was quite evident that his mind was not wholly unsusceptible
to emotions emanating from an awakening appetite, and I believed that if he
saw exactly what he wanted, he would not neglect an opportunity of availing
himself of it. But what did he want? I must certainly find out. Drawing
myself back again, I took off the yellow fly, and put on another. This was a
white one, with black blotches, like a big miller moth which had fallen into
an ink-pot. It was surely a conspicuous creature, and as I crept forward and
sent it swooping over the stream, I could not see how any trout, with a
single insectivorous tooth in his head, could fail to rise to such an
occasion. But this trout did not rise. He would not even come out from under
his bank to look at the swiftly flitting creature. He probably could see it
well enough from where he was.

But I was not to be discouraged. I put on another fly; a green one with a
red tail. It did not look like any insect that I had ever seen, but I
thought that the trout might know more about such things than I. He did come
out to look at it, but probably considering it a product of that modern
æstheticism which sacrifices natural beauty to mediæval crudeness of color
and form, he retired without evincing any disposition to countenance this
style of art.

It was evident that it would be useless to put on any other flies, for the
two I had left were a good deal bedraggled, and not nearly so attractive as
those I had used. Just before leaving the house that morning, Peter's son
had given me a wooden match-box filled with worms for bait, which, although
I did not expect to need, I put in my pocket. As a last resort I determined
to try the trout with a worm. I selected the plumpest and most comely of the
lot; I put a new hook on my line; I looped him about it in graceful coils,
and cautiously approached the water, as before. Now a worm never attempts to
wildly leap across a flowing brook, nor does he flit in thoughtless
innocence through the sunny air, and over the bright transparent stream. If
he happens to fall into the water, he sinks to the bottom; and if he be of a
kind not subject to drowning, he generally endeavors to secrete himself
under a stone, or to burrow in the soft mud. With this knowledge of his
nature I gently dropped my worm upon the surface of the stream, and then
allowed him slowly to sink. Out sailed the trout from under the bank, but
stopped before reaching the sinking worm. There was a certain something in
his action which seemed to indicate a disgust at the sight of such plebeian
food, and a fear seized me that he might now swim off, and pay no further
attention to my varied baits. Suddenly there was a ripple in the water, and
I felt a pull on the line. Instantly I struck; and then there was a tug. My
blood boiled through every vein and artery, and I sprang to my feet. I did
not give him the butt; I did not let him run with yards of line down the
brook; nor reel him in, and let him make another mad course up stream; I did
not turn him over as he jumped into the air; nor endeavor, in any way, to
show him that I understood those tricks, which his depraved nature prompted
him to play upon the angler. With an absolute dependence upon the strength
of old Peter's tackle, I lifted the fish. Out he came from the water, which
held him with a gentle suction as if unwilling to let him go, and then he
whirled through the air like a meteor flecked with rosy fire, and landed on
the fresh green grass a dozen feet behind me. Down on my knees I dropped
before him as he tossed and rolled, his beautiful spots and colors
glistening in the sun. He was truly a splendid trout, fully a foot long,
round and heavy. Carefully seizing him, I easily removed the hook from the
bony roof of his capacious mouth thickly set with sparkling teeth, and then
I tenderly killed him, with all his pluck, as old Peter would have said,
still in him.

I covered the rest of the fish in my basket with wet plantain leaves, and
laid my trout king on this cool green bed. Then I hurried off to the old
man, whom I saw coming out of the woods. When I opened my basket and showed
him what I had caught, Peter looked surprised, and, taking up the trout,
examined it.

"Why, this is a big fellow," he said. "At first I thought it was Barney
Sloat's boss trout, but it isn't long enough for him. Barney showed me his
trout, that gen'rally keeps in a deep pool, where a tree has fallen over the
stream down there. Barney tells me he often sees him, and he's been tryin'
fur two years to ketch him, but he never has, and I say he never will, fur
them big trout's got too much sense to fool round any kind of victuals
that's got a string to it. They let a little fish eat all he wants, and then
they eat him. How did you ketch this one?"

I gave an account of the manner of the capture, to which Peter listened with
interest and approval.

"If you'd a stood off and made a cast at that feller, you'd either have
caught him at the first flip, which isn't likely, as he didn't seem to want
no feather flies, or else you'd a skeered him away. That's all well enough
in the tumblin' water, where you gen'rally go fur trout, but the man that's
got the true feelin' fur fish will try to suit his idees to theirs, and if
he keeps on doin' that, he's like to learn a thing or two that may do him
good. That's a fine fish, and you ketched him well. I've got a lot of 'em,
but nothin' of that heft."

After luncheon we fished for an hour or two with no result worth recording,
and then we started for home. A couple of partridges ran across the road
some distance ahead of us, and these gave Peter an idea.

"Do you know," said he, "if things go on as they're goin' on now, that
there'll come a time when it won't be considered high-toned sport to shoot a
bird slam-bang dead. The game gunners will pop 'em with little harpoons,
with long threads tied to 'em, and the feller that can tire out his bird,
and haul him in with the longest and thinnest piece of spool thread, will be
the crackest sportsman."

At this point I remarked to my companion that perhaps he was a little hard
on the game fishermen.

"Well," said old Peter, with a smile on his corrugated visage, "I reckon I'd
have to do a lot of talkin' before I'd git even with 'em, fur the way they
give me the butt for my style of fishin'. What I say behind their backs I
say to their faces. I seed one of these fellers once with a fish on his
hook, that he was runnin' up an' down the stream like a chased chicken. 'Why
don't you pull him in?' says I. 'And break my rod an' line?' says he. 'Why
don't you have a stronger line and pole?' says I. 'There wouldn't be no
science in that,' says he. 'If it's your science you want to show off,' says
I, 'you ought to fish for mud eels. There's more game in 'em than there is
in any other fish round here, and as they're mighty lively out of water you
might play one of 'em fur half an hour after you got him on shore, and it
would take all your science to keep him from reelin' up his end of the line
faster than you could yourn.'"

When we reached the farm the old man went into the barn, and I took the fish
into the house. I found the two pretty daughters in the large room, where
the eating and some of the cooking was done. I opened my basket, and with
great pride showed them the big trout I had caught. They evidently thought
it was a large fish, but they looked at each other, and smiled in a way that
I did not understand. I had expected from them, at least, as much admiration
for my prize and my skill as their father had shown.

"You don't seem to think much of this fine trout that I took such trouble to
catch," I remarked.

"You mean," said the elder girl, with a laugh, "that you bought of Barney
Sloat."

I looked at her in astonishment.

"Barney was along here to-day," she said, "and he told about your buying
your fish of him."

"Bought of him!" I exclaimed, indignantly. "A little string of fish at the
bottom of the basket I bought of him, but all the others, and this big one,
I caught myself."

"Oh, of course," said the pretty daughter, "bought the little ones and
caught all the big ones!"

"Barney Sloat ought to have kept his mouth shut," said the younger pretty
daughter, looking at me with an expression of pity. "He'd got his money, and
he hadn't no business to go telling on people. Nobody likes that sort of
thing. But this big fish is a real nice one, and you shall have it for your
supper."

"Thank you," I said, with dignity, and left the room.

I did not intend to have any further words with these young women on this
subject, but I cannot deny that I was annoyed and mortified. This was the
result of a charitable action. I think I was never more proud of anything
than of catching that trout; and it was a good deal of a downfall to
suddenly find myself regarded as a mere city man fishing with a silver hook.
But, after all, what did it matter?

The boy who did not seem to be accounted a member of the family came into
the house, and as he passed me he smiled good-humoredly, and said: "Buyed
'em!"

I felt like throwing a chair at him, but refrained out of respect to my
host. Before supper the old man came out on to the porch where I was
sitting. "It seems," said he, "that my gals has got it inter their heads
that you bought that big fish of Barney Sloat, and as I can't say I seed you
ketch it, they're not willin' to give in, 'specially as I didn't git no such
big one. 'Tain't wise to buy fish when you're goin' fishin' yourself. It's
pretty certain to tell agen you."

"You ought to have given me that advice before," I said, somewhat shortly.
"You saw me buy the fish."

"You don't s'pose," said old Peter, "that I'm goin' to say anythin' to keep
money out of my neighbor's pockets. We don't do that way in these parts. But
I've told the gals they're not to speak another word about it, so you
needn't give your mind no worry on that score. And now let's go in to
supper. If you're as hungry as I am, there won't be many of them fish left
fur breakfast."

That evening, as we were sitting smoking on the porch, old Peter's mind
reverted to the subject of the unfounded charge against me. "It goes pretty
hard," he remarked, "to have to stand up and take a thing you don' like when
there's no call fur it. It's bad enough when there is a call fur it. That
matter about your fish buyin' reminds me of what happened two summers ago to
my sister, or ruther to her two little boys-or, more correct yit, to one of
'em. Them was two cur'ous little boys. They was allus tradin' with each
other. Their father deals mostly in horses, and they must have got it from
him. At the time I'm tellin' of they'd traded everythin' they had, and when
they hadn't nothin' else left to swap they traded names. Joe he took
Johnny's name, and Johnny he took Joe's. Jist about when they'd done this,
they both got sick with sumthin' or other, the oldest one pretty bad, the
other not much. Now there ain't no doctor inside of twenty miles of where my
sister lives. But there's one who sometimes has a call to go through that
part of the country, and the people about there is allus very glad when they
chance to be sick when he comes along. Now this good luck happened to my
sister, fur the doctor come by jist at this time. He looks into the state of
the boys, and while their mother has gone downstairs he mixes some medicine
he has along with him. 'What's your name?' he says to the oldest boy when
he'd done it. Now as he'd traded names with his brother, fair and square, he
wasn't goin' back on the trade, and he said, 'Joe.' 'And my name's Johnny,'
up and says the other one. Then the doctor he goes and gives the bottle of
medicine to their mother, and says he: 'This medicine is fur Joe. You must
give him a tablespoonful every two hours. Keep up the treatment, and he'll
be all right. As fur Johnny, there's nothin' much the matter with him. He
don't need no medicine.' And then he went away. Every two hours after that
Joe, who wasn't sick worth mentionin', had to swallow a dose of horrid
stuff, and pretty soon he took to his bed, and Johnny he jist played round
and got well in the nat'ral way. Joe's mother kept up the treatment, gittin'
up in the night to feed that stuff to him; but the poor little boy got wuss
and wuss, and one mornin' he says to his mother, says he: 'Mother, I guess
I'm goin' to die, and I'd ruther do that than take any more of that
medicine, and I wish you'd call Johnny and we'll trade names back agen, and
if he don't want to come and do it, you kin tell him he kin keep the old
minkskin I gave him to boot, on account of his name havin' a Wesley in it.'
'Trade names,' says his mother, 'what do you mean by that?' And then he told
her what he and Johnny had done. 'And did you ever tell anybody about this?'
says she. 'Nobody but Dr. Barnes,' says he. 'After that I got sick and
forgot it.' When my sister heard that, an idee struck into her like you put
a fork into an apple dumplin'. Traded names, and told the doctor! She'd all
along thought it strange that the boy that seemed wuss should be turned out,
and the other one put under treatment; but it wasn't fur her to set up her
opinion agen that of a man like Dr. Barnes. Down she went, in about
seventeen jumps, to where Eli Timmins, the hired man, was ploughin' in the
corn. 'Take that horse out of that,' she hollers, 'and you may kill him if
you have to, but git Dr. Barnes here before my little boy dies.' When the
doctor come he heard the story, and looked at the sick youngster, and then
says he: 'If he'd kept his minkskin, and not hankered after a Wesley to his
name, he'd a had a better time of it. Stop the treatment, and he'll be all
right.' Which she did; and he was. Now it seems to me that this is a good
deal like your case. You've had to take a lot of medicine that didn't belong
to you, and I guess it's made you feel pretty bad; but I've told my gals to
stop the treatment, and you'll be all right in the mornin'. Good-night. Your
candlestick is on the kitchen table."

For two days longer I remained in this neighborhood, wandering alone over
the hills, and up the mountain-sides, and by the brooks, which tumbled and
gurgled through the lonely forest. Each evening I brought home a goodly
supply of trout, but never a great one like the noble fellow for which I
angled in the meadow stream.

On the morning of my departure I stood on the porch with old Peter waiting
for the arrival of the mail driver, who was to take me to the nearest
railroad town.

"I don't want to say nothin'," remarked the old man, "that would keep them
fellers with the jinted poles from stoppin' at my house when they comes to
these parts a-fishin'. I ain't got no objections to their poles; 'tain't
that. And I don't mind nuther their standin' off, and throwin' their flies
as fur as they've a mind to; that's not it. And it ain't even the way they
have of worryin' their fish. I wouldn't do it myself, but if they like it,
that's their business. But what does rile me is the cheeky way in which they
stand up and say that there isn't no decent way of fishin' but their way.
And that to a man that's ketched more fish, of more different kinds, with
more game in 'em, and had more fun at it, with a lot less money, and less
tomfoolin' than any fishin' feller that ever come here and talked to me like
an old cat tryin' to teach a dog to ketch rabbits. No, sir; agen I say that
I don't take no money fur entertainin' the only man that ever come out here
to go a-fishin' in a plain, Christian way. But if you feel tetchy about not
payin' nothin', you kin send me one of them poles in three pieces, a good
strong one, that'll lift Barney Sloat's trout, if ever I hook him."

I sent him the rod; and next summer I am going out to see him use it.

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End, PLAIN FISHING

Wolfgang

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