Part 3

II. THE TWO BOYS

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.

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.

III. THE TOWN-MEETING AT BLUE ROCK POOL

IDN’T know that fish held town-meetings? That shows how your education has been neglected. A town-meeting is an assembly; fish assemble; therefore, fish hold town-meetings. Isn’t that conclusive? But the fact is one of experience as well as of logical deduction. It can be “mediated” by the faith of every disciple of the immortal Izaak.

This is the unadorned and veracious account of one of these piscatorial gatherings, held on an August day in Caine River, New Brunswick, seventeen miles from the nearest house. They had been gathering for days. Prominent citizens were there from Big Rock, five miles down the river, and almost every inhabitant of the Forks, three miles up stream, had answered to roll-call. A large number of youngsters who had lately taken up their abode in Blue Rock Brook seemed to think that this was some sort of circus, and had to be nipped into order by their more sedate seniors.

The main business on hand was to provide for the “summer schools” which had won a deserved reputation for excellence long before the University of Chicago opened its doors. It was customary, also, to elect a path-master at this time, that the highways might be looked after and kept free from grass. The Hon. S. Maximus Fontaine, political boss of Troutopolis, had things well in hand, and it was generally admitted that his slate would go through without a hitch.

No wonder that the beauty-loving trout came from far and from near to this place of assembly. If the truth must be told a majority cared less about the election than they did for the climate. Search the country over and you could not find a more charming spot. Just where a great clump of white birches made a whispering place for the wind, Blue Rock Brook came gurgling down into the river. Its source was a great spring back among the hills, and all along its course other springs gave of their best to keep its waters cool and sweet. From start to finish it was uncontaminated. When, at last, it found the river, it rested for a little in a big, clear pool, before giving of its freshness to the warmer waters of the larger stream. Just here, with clean gravel underneath and the nodding birches casting their shadows overhead, enswathed in a delicious coolness that defied the heat of the August sun, were gathered the clans on the day of which we write. It was here that they were deceived, betrayed, undone by a stony-hearted Preacher who had journeyed far to be present at this meeting. But that suggests backing up and starting over again in order to get the Preacher to this lonely spot.

How did he find the town-meeting? That is a long story and must be compressed if told at all. It would take more time than we have at our command to describe the mighty struggle through which the Preacher passed in wrenching himself away from the seductive stockyards’ odours of Chicago. He succeeded, however, and went meandering through New York State and Massachusetts, finally taking passage on a venerable tub that crawls--in fair weather--between Boston and Yarmouth. There was a vague idea haunting the ministerial mind that he wanted to see the Evangeline country; but that infant persuasion died suddenly in Digby. If any American tourist wants to see Nova Scotia let him keep away from Digby or put it last on his list. For fascination it discounts the Lorelei. All right-minded people (that means those who love to sail and fish) are charmed with this little town.

If we had not set out to tell how the Preacher broke up that Blue Rock town-meeting, we should stop right here and relate one or two mild stories about the fishing at Digby. Did you ever catch pollock that were run by ninety-horse-power steam engines? Pollock that would strike so hard that they dislocated the fisherman’s shoulders when he tried to check them up a bit? Did you ever catch a codfish weighing two hundred and seventy pounds? Now this is not about pollock or codfish, and it is just possible that one figure ought to be taken off the weight of that cod. Do not ask that we tell about the day’s fishing on the Bay of Fundy, for we must not do it. We “could a tale unfold,” but it shall not be unfolded here lest we never get to that town-meeting.

It was at the supper table in a Fredericton hotel that the existence of Blue Rock Pool first became known to the Preacher. He had opened his heart to the whole company and begged of them information concerning the trout fishing in that locality. One guest said that by driving out to the northeast four miles trout could be gotten in limited numbers and of small proportions. Another suggested going up the St. John’s River some ten miles. There was much talk of what had been done in time past, and much regret expressed that the Preacher had not come in June or waited until later. The time was very unfavourable--it always is. Under such consolation the mercury in the ministerial thermometer sank out of sight. When supper was over and the Preacher was leaving the table, a small man who had not said a word during the entire meal took the discouraged dominie to one side and said:

“If you are willing to make a trip of some sixty or seventy miles and camp out one night, I can tell you of a place where you can get some trout.”

“But,” said the Preacher, “I have no tent or blankets or duffle of any kind.”

“I’ll see to all that,” replied the little man; “I have everything that you will need, and it is yours to use.”

What a lot of good fellows there are in the world, and the majority of them love to fish. Here was a man putting his precious outfit at the disposal of an utter stranger, with no thought of reward or desire for it, simply to show a kindness to a brother devotee of the gentle art. And the little man proved to be a tailor. Now it has been said that it takes nine tailors to make a man; but you could have made nine average men out of that tailor and there would have been material left to patch the rest of the race. He gave the Preacher the name of a man who could be secured as a guide, helped him make out a list of eatables, brought over his caribou blanket, tent, dishes, etc., and bright and early the next morning the train going north carried a passenger bound for Blue Rock Pool.

Did you ever notice with what reluctance the average vehicle of transportation moves when it has a fisherman on board? If you use a horse, he’ll go to sleep; an auto is sure to throw a fit, and a railway train almost invariably stops and goes backward for a good share of the time. It looks as if there existed some sort of a “combine” to prevent the fisherman from making connections with the place where he knows bliss is waiting for him. It took the train six hours to go fifty miles! They called it an “accommodation”; but by the way that fisherman growled you could see that he did not realize that he was being accommodated. He did finally get to Doaktown, where his guide lived, and found the aforesaid gentleman waiting for him at the station in response to a telegram sent the night before. His name was George--at least it ought to have been--and he was a clean-looking, husky fellow about thirty-five years of age. Close at hand was Bucephalus adjusted to a buckboard. (Bucephalus was the prancing steed which had consented to haul us to Caine River.) He was not handsome except in behaviour; in that he was a beauty. Habakkuk had evidently not seen Bucephalus when he wrote: “Their horses are swifter than the leopard.” The duffle was piled on behind the seat, a bag of oats was given the place of honour on top of the duffie, and Bucephalus, gently and with infinite caution, began to move. A sense of security took possession of the Preacher’s soul with the first step that that horse took. There was something dignified and assuring about his movements that left the mind absolutely free to reflect upon the beauties of nature, untroubled by any fear of personal injury. About a mile out of Doaktown on the road to Caine River was a little hill. Bravely Bucephalus tackled it, stopping not more than twice each rod to give his passengers time to drink in the beauties of the scenery. It was during this period of hill-climbing, with its attendant spaces of quiet, that George began his wary approach towards getting acquainted with the Preacher.