Every mind can be suited at the Islands, the 79 devotee of fashion can swirl around in its vortex, and for them who don’t care for it there are beautiful quiet places where that vortex don’t foam and geyser round, and all crowned with the ineffable beauty of the St. Lawrence.
And we sailed by the Island of Summer Land (a good name), where a beloved pastor and his children in the meetin’ house settled down so long ago that Fashion hadn’t found out how beautiful the Thousand Islands wuz. They come here for rest and recreation, and built their cottages along the undulatin’ shore in the shape of a great letter S. It wuz a pretty spot.
When the boat wuz ready to go back at night I wuz, and wuz conveyed in safety at about six p.m. to the bosom of my family. I say this poetically, for the bosom wuzn’t there when I got back; it hadn’t come in from fishin’ yet, and when it did come it wuz cross and fraxious, for the other deacon had caught two fish and he hadn’t any. He said he felt sick, and believed he wuz threatened with numony, but he wuzn’t; it wuz only madness and crossness, that kinder stuffs anybody up some like tizik.
Well, Whitfield found a letter that made it 80 necessary for him to return to Jonesville to once, and of course Tirzah Ann, like the fond wife and mother she wuz, would take little Delight and go with him. But after talkin’ to Josiah, Whitfield concluded they would stay over one day more to go fishin’. So the very next mornin’ he got a big roomy boat, and we sot out to troll for fish. The way they do this is to hitch a line on behind the boat and let it drag through the water and catch what comes to it. And as our boat swep’ on over the glassy surface of the water that lay shinin’ so smooth and level, not hintin’ of the rocks and depths below, I methought, “Here we be all on us, men and wimmen, fishin’ on the broad sea of life, and who knows what will tackle the lines we drop down into the mysterious depths? We sail along careless and onthinkin’ over rush and rapid, depth and shallow, the line draggin’ along. Who knows what we may feel all of a sudden on the end of the line? Who knows what we may be ketchin’ ontirely onbeknown to us? We may be ketchin’ happiness, and we may be layin’ holt of sorrow. A bliss may be jerked up by us out of the depth; agin a wretchedness and a heart-ache may grip holt the end of the line. Poor fishers that we be! settin’ in our 81 frail little shallop on deep waters over onknown depths, draggin’ a onceasin’ line along after us night and day, year in and year out. The line is sot sometimes by ourselves, but a great hand seems to be holdin’ ours as we fasten on the hook, a great protectin’ Power seems to be behind us, tellin’ us where to drop the line, for we feel sometimes that we can’t help ourselves.”
I wuz engaged in these deep thoughts as we glided onwards. Josiah wuz wrestlin’ with his hat brim, he would have acted pert and happy if it hadn’t been for that. At my request he had bought a straw hat to cover his eyes from the sun and preserve his complexion, and so fur is that man from megumness that he had got one with a brim so broad that it stood out around his face like a immense white wing, floppin’ up and down with every gust of wind. He had seen some fashionable young feller wear one like it and he thought it would be very becomin’ and stylish to get one for a fishin’ excursion, little thinkin’ of the discomfort it would give him.
“Plague it all!” sez he, as it would flop up and down in front of his eyes and blind him, “what made me hear to you, goin’ a-fishin’ blind as a bat!” 82
Sez I, “Why didn’t you buy a megum-sized one? Why do you always go to extremes?”
“To please you!” he hollered out from under his blinders. “Jest to please you, mom!”
Sez I, “Josiah Allen, you know you did it for fashion, so why lay it off onto me? But,” sez I, “if you’ll keep still I’ll fix it all right.”
“Keep still!” sez he, “I don’t see any prospect of my doin’ anything else when I can’t see an inch from my nose.”