She evidently had one of the qualifications of the true angler.
The Founder of Naples
Late in the afternoon I saw a lady and a gentleman coming down the beach in a handsome carriage, drawn by a pair of trim-looking mules. I soon recognized Col. W. N. Haldeman, of the Louisville Courier-Journal, and his good wife. Col. Haldeman was the founder of Naples, where he had a charming winter home. (His sad death through a trolley-car accident will long be regretted and mourned by his many friends.)
A Kentucky Welcome
The Colonel and his lady insisted on my dining with them that evening. I pleaded that I had nothing to wear but outing clothes, and was not presentable. They would not be refused, however, the Colonel saying that it was their first drive in the carriage, which had been on its way six weeks from Louisville, and that Mrs. Haldeman had honored me by coming herself to invite me. Of course, I had to accept their kind invitation, as I could proffer no more excuses, and especially as the Colonel promised me a real Kentucky dinner; that settled it. We had a delightful drive up the beach on the hard sand at low tide, and the dinner was to the queen's taste: Oyster soup, baked redfish, venison steak, and the Kentucky feature, a roast 'possum with a lemon in its mouth.
Moonlight Ride by the Sea
After a most enjoyable evening with a happy company, myself and one of my darkey acquaintances of the morning mounted two saddle mules for a moonlight midnight ride down the beach to the pass. It was a high, spring tide, compelling us to occasionally abandon the beach where covered with water, and take to the scrub, much to the evident fear of the negro, who, I soon discovered, was very timid and superstitious. He started at every sound in the still night—the puffing of a porpoise in the water or a 'coon or 'possum scurrying through the thick scrub or the weird cry of a night bird caused him to blench with evident fear and trembling. At the leap of a large fish, a tarpon or jewfish, that struck the water with a resounding splash, he whispered:
"Doctah, was dat a debblefish?"
"It might have been," I replied.
