A Pessimist in Theory and Practice

by Frederic Mayer Bird

A WILD BROOK.

Next day we went some miles along a lonely road, and then through the fields of an abandoned farm. I don't wonder they abandoned it; I am only sorry for the poor wretch who once cherished the delusive dream of scratching a living there; when he died or went back to Canada, he couldn't well be worse off. Nature had but partially reclaimed the land, and we tramped through weeds and grass up to our middle; one might as well be wading a fair-sized river. You have no idea of the dew up here till you have tried it. After a while we struck into the woods, and such woods you never saw—at least I hope so for your sake. Rocks, big and little, generally of the most unchristian shapes—not picturesque, but sprawling; underbrush wherever it had a chance to grow: you could scarcely find a foot of smooth ground. The worst of it was the way the trees lay around loose. The region had not been burned over, at least not for many years; but it did seem to have been cursed, as if Adam's fall had been enacted there. The monarchs of the forest, for countless generations, had indulged a depraved propensity to fall also, and across each other in all possible directions. It was such an abattis as I trust our men, in the war, never had to fight their way through: here it was bad enough without anybody to shoot at you. I would go rods out of my way to get around a great bowlder, and come upon a conglomeration of big trees which had tumbled about till they made a Virginia fence fifteen feet high. Climbing is all very well in its way, but I don't like this kind. The queer thing was that they had not the sense to decay and crumble; the wood was mostly sound enough to be standing yet. I asked Hartman why they did not haul off all this timber, and he said there was no place to haul it to, nor any way to haul it, nor anybody to do the hauling; that fuel was cheap, and the few inhabitants had plenty nearer home; and besides, that it was most ornamental and useful where it was—it afforded exercise to the bodily and spiritual muscles of any anglers from the city who might come that way like me. "You forget the characteristics of this region, which are its advantages in my view. You can get turnpike roads, and teams, and sawmills, nearer home. You come up here to be away from the busy haunts, you know, and to see Nature in her native purity. This stream that I am taking you to is very seldom visited."

"I should think it would be, if this is the way to get to it," I said, as I fell over a root and barked my nose and knees. "What the deuce did we come to such a blanked place for?"

"For trout: you said they were what you wanted. The less fishermen, the more fish. This is the best brook in the county, because it is the least accessible. I rarely come here myself: I've been saving it up this year for you."

We went on, our progress marked by frequent delays and accidents; that it was marked by no profanity was due merely to Jim's reticence and to my exceptional manners and principles. After what seemed to me about twenty miles—though he said it was only one and a half—of this singularly forsaken country, he cried, "Look out now, or you'll fall in. Here is the brook."

It made noise enough to be heard a long way off, but I thought that was something else—some kobolds or other abnormal beings, probably, working at their forges underground. The brook itself was well enough, but it did not seem to belong there; you could not see it till you were on the edge of it. I have fished a good many streams, and tramped through all sorts of woods, but I never saw such a place as that before, and I never want to again. We had left our rods at home; high-toned anglers who carry fancy tackle through such regions leave it along the painful way in small pieces. So we carried merely our baskets—which were encumbrance enough—and what we had in our pockets. You can cut a pole anywhere, and it does not want to be a long one either: take your fly-book if you like, but worms are as good or better. There was no use of wading: you would be more likely to scare the fish so than by staying on the bank, where they could never see you; the difficulty was to see far enough to throw in five feet of line. It was a superior brook—all but the getting to it, and, as I afterwards found, away from it. If it could be removed from its loathsome surroundings and put down in a decent country, I would go there every year. I was going to say that some of the cascades were forty feet high, till I remembered that trout cannot climb as far as that.

"Don't lose your balance," said Jim; "these fish are fierce." They were, in the wilder parts. They would bite like mad, and then wriggle and wrench themselves off the hook before you could get them up the bank. I never saw or heard of such ferocity, except in the celebrated scaly warrior which chased an equally famous fisherman all over an Adirondack lake, jumped across his boat several times, and, if I remember rightly, bit him on the nose. No such adventure fell to my lot on this occasion, though I thought that some of them, when sufficiently near my face, grinned at me as they parted company. Yet none of them were over half a pound, and most of them much less. You can see that this healthful pastime does not produce its usual demoralizing effect on me. When we reached a flat piece of ground, the water would become quiet and the manners of the fish more humane, so that they would come out like chubs. I stood in one spot under a tree, and took twenty-nine in succession. My sister, looking over these memoirs, suggests that they probably were chubs; but Hartman, who was behind me then, came up and saw them, so I have his evidence. He said it was a spawning bed, and I ought to put the twenty-nine back. Who would have thought him capable of such mean jealousy? But he cannot play his tricks on me.

About two P.M. he said we had better start.

"Why, we don't want to reach home much before dark," said I.

"No danger of it. It's much worse getting out of this than getting in. You saw how much path there is: we can't go straight, and it's all chance where we strike the fields. You'd better eat what you've got, and drink all you can: there's no water between this and the road."