I remember distinctly the time when some accident befell the dam, and the water was drawn off to make repairs. The great surface of stone and mud for the first time was uncovered to our sight, and I remember the flopping and struggling fishes that found themselves with no water in which to swim. I remember how we pounced upon these fishes, and caught them with our hands, and almost filled a washtub with the poor helpless things. I cannot recall that I thought anything about the fishes, except that it was a fine chance to catch them and take them home; although the emptying of the mill-pond must have been the greatest and most serious catastrophe to them,—not less than comes to a community of men and women from the sinking of a city in the sea. But we had then only seen the world from the point of view of children and not of fishes.
But it was not until I was large enough to go off to the great river that wound down the valley that I really began to fish. I had then grown old enough to get first-class lines and hooks and a bamboo pole. I went with the other boys down below the town, down where our little stream joined its puny waters with the great river that scarcely seemed to care whether it joined or not, and down to the long covered bridge, where the dust lay cool and thick on the wooden floor. Here I used to sit on the masonry just below the footpath, and throw my line into the deep water, and wait for the fish to come along.
Where is the boy or the man who has not fished, and who does not in some way keep up his fishing to the very last? Yet it is not easy to understand the real joys of fishing. Its fascination must grow from the fact that the line is dropped into the deep waters where the eye cannot follow and only imagination can guess what may be pulled out; it is in the everlasting hope of the human mind about the things it cannot know. In some form I am sure I have been fishing all my life, and will have no other sort of sport. Ever and ever have I been casting my line into the great unknown sea, and generally drawing it up with the hook as bare as when I threw it down; and still this in no way keeps me from dropping it in again and again, for surely sometime something will come along and bite! We are all fishers,—fishers of fish, and fishers of each other; and I know that for my part I have never managed to get others to nibble at my hook one-half so often as I have swallowed theirs.
Our youthful fishing did not all consist in dropping our hooks and lines into the stream. In fishing, as everywhere in life, the expectation was always one of the chief delights. How often did we begin our excursions on the night before! We planned to get up early, that we might be ready to furnish the fishes with their breakfast,—to come upon them after their night’s sleep, when they were hungry and would bite eagerly at our baited hooks. How expectantly we took the spade and went to the garden and dug up the choicest and fattest worms,—enough to catch all the fishes in the sea! Then at night we dreamed of fish. We went to bed at twilight, that we might be ready in the gray morning hours. We started out early with lines and poles and bait. We stopped awhile at the big covered bridge and sat on the hard stone abutments, we put the wiggling worms upon the hooks and threw our lines far out into the stream. I cannot recollect that we thought of any pain to the fish, or still less to the worm,—though I do not believe that I could string a twisting worm over the length of one of those cold steel hooks to-day, no matter what reward might come. My father did not encourage me in fishing, although I do not remember that he said much about how cruel it really was. But he told me never to take a fish that I could not eat, and to throw the small ones back into the stream at once. Yet though all the fishes that came up were smaller than I had hoped or believed, still I was always reluctant to throw them back.
The first fishing-spot seldom fulfilled our expectations, and most of us waited awhile and then went farther down the stream. Slowly and carefully we followed the winding banks, and we always felt sure that each new effort would be more successful than the last. But our expectations were never quite fulfilled. Now and then we would meet men and boys with a fine string of fish. These were generally of the class my father called shiftless and worthless; but as for us, we had little luck. Gradually, as the sun got higher in the heavens, we went farther and farther down the stream, always hopeful for success in the next deep hole. Finally, tired and hungry, we threw away our bait, and, with our small string of sickly-looking fish, turned toward home. Sometimes on our return we came upon a more patient boy who had sat quietly all day at the hole we left and been abundantly rewarded for his pains. Generally, weary and worn out, we would drop our fish on the woodshed floor and go into the kitchen to get our supper. Not until the next day would we again think of our string of fish, and then we usually found that the cat had eaten them in the night.
When we reflected on our fishing, it was a little hard to tell where the fun came in; but on the whole this is true of most childish sports, and, for that matter, it holds good with all those of later years. But this has no tendency to make us stop the sport, or rather the hope of sport, for to give up hope is to give up life.
The last time I drove across the old covered bridge I stopped for a moment by the stone pier where I used to sit and fish. I looked over at the muddy stream, and the hard gray abutment where I had watched so patiently through many hot and dusty days; and there in the same place where I once sat and expectantly held my pole above the stream was another urchin not unlike the one I knew, or thought I knew, so long ago. I lingered a few moments, and shuddered as I saw the cruel boy push the barbed hook through the whole length of the squirming worm. I watched him throw the bait silently into the yellow stream, and, behold! in a short time he pulled out a little wiggling fish. I went up to him as he took the murderous hook from the writhing fish, and tried to make him think that it was so small that he ought to throw it back. But in spite of all I could say, the little brute stuck a willow twig through its bleeding gills and strung it on a stick, as I had done when I was a little savage catching fish.
CHAPTER XVI
RULES OF CONDUCT
I was very young when I first began to wonder why the world was so unreasonable; and now I am growing old, and it is not a whit more sensible than it used to be. Still, as a child I was in full accord with the other boys and girls about the stupidity of the world. Of course most of this perversity on the part of older people came from their constant interference with our desires and plans. None of them seemed to remember that they once were young and had looked out at the great wide world through the wondering eyes of the little child.
It seemed to us as if our elders were in a universal conspiracy against us children; and we in turn combined to defeat their plans. I wonder where my little playmates have strayed on the great round world, and if they have grown as unreasonable as our fathers and mothers used to be! Reasonable or unreasonable, it is certain that our parents never knew what was best for us to do. At least, I thought so then; and although the wisdom, or at least the experience, of many years has been added to my childish stock, I am bound to say that I think so still. Even a boy might sometimes be trusted to know what he ought to do; and the instinct and teachings of Nature, as they speak directly to the child, should have some weight.