“Bass, mind you. Sunfish don’t count. You’re always catching sunfish.”
“They count in the pan. But I’ll beat you on bass. I know some places—”
“Who doesn’t? All right, go ahead!”
We were off; Jonathan, as usual, wading [pg 148] up to his chest or perched on a bit of boulder above some dark, slick rapid; I preferring water not more than waist-deep, and not too far from shore to miss the responses of the wood-folk to my passing: soft flurries of wings; shy, half-suppressed peepings; quick warning notes; light footfalls, hopping or running or galloping; the snapping of twigs and the crushing of leaves. Some sounds tell me who the creature is,—the warning of the blue jay, the whirr of the big ruffed grouse, the thud of the bounding rabbit,—but many others leave me guessing, which is almost better. When a very big stick snaps, I always feel sure a deer is stealing away, though Jonathan assures me that a chewink can break twigs and “kick up a row generally,” so that you’d swear it was nothing smaller than a wild bull.
So we fished that day. When I caught a bass, which was seldom, I whooped and waved it at Jonathan, and when I caught a shiner, which was rather often, I waved it too, just to keep his mind occupied. Hours passed, and we met at a bend in the river where the deep water glides close to shore.
“Hungry?” I asked.
“Now you speak of it, yes.”
“Shall we go back?”
“How can I tell? Now, if we only had that watch we’d know whether we ought to be hungry or not.”
“What does that matter, if we are hungry? Besides, if you’d had a watch, you’d have had to carry it in your teeth. You know perfectly well you wouldn’t have brought it, anyway.”