The Home
of
“Catfish John”
CHAPTER VII
CATFISH JOHN
“CATFISH JOHN” lived several miles farther up the shore. He was nearly eighty—at least, so he thought. Rheumatism had interfered with his activities to a considerable extent, and his net reels on the beach were getting a little harder to turn as the years rolled on. He considered the invasion of the dune country by the newcomers a great misfortune, although he was perfectly content to deal with them in a business way.
“Fifty years ago, when I fust come ’ere,” he said, “this country was sumpen to live in. There was some o’ the Injuns ’ere, but they didn’t never bother nobody. Thar was lots o’ game, an’ things ’round ’ere was pretty wild.”
“How did you happen to come here, John?” I asked.
“I come from down East on the Erie Canal, an’ I traveled out ’ere to see some land a feller was tryin’ to sell that ’e showed me on some maps ’e had. He said it was pretty wet, but it had thousands o’ huckleberry bushes on it, an’ the berries grew so thick the bushes all bent over with ’em.
“I didn’t ’ave much money, an’ I didn’t expect to pay much out, but I thought I’d come out an’ take a look at it. I didn’t see no huckleberries, but it was wet sure ’nough. If I’d ’a’ gone on it I’d ’a’ had to gone in a boat an’ feel fer the land with a pole, an’ if I’d wanted to live on it, I’d ’a’ had to growed some fins. It was a good thing fer that feller that he didn’t git that thar land onto me afore I’d seen it.