Well, as you know, I had the end of my fish balloon tied air-tight shut, with a piece of old fishing line I’d had in my pocket, and it was still in the water on the opposite side of the boat. It was really cute, that little yellowish rubber fish bobbing along out there on the surface of the water.
And then Poetry yelled across to the other boat, saying, “HEY, YOU GUYS, OVER THERE! WE GOT A FISH BUT DON’T HAVE ANY STRINGER TO PUT HIM ON. WHAT’LL WE DO WITH HIM?”
Circus, being mischievous and having lots of bright ideas anyway, yelled back to us, “IF YOU’LL PUT HIM BACK IN THE WATER AND TELL HIM TO SWIM OVER HERE, WE’LL PUT HIM ON OUR STRINGER!”
And that was what gave Poetry another idea which wasn’t so dumb and which turned our discouraged fishing trip into a real one that was wonderful. Poetry yelled back to Circus, “SWELL IDEA, WE’LL SEND HIM OVER, RIGHT AWAY!” Then he got a command in his voice and said to me, “Here, Bill, give me that line,” and reached out and took it before I could make up my mind not to let him have it.
“What on earth crazy thing you going to do?” Dragonfly asked, when Poetry held the fish between his knees a minute while with his two fat hands he made a double slip-knot around the walleye’s tail; and then almost before anybody could have stopped him if he had wanted to, Poetry released that frisky little walleye into the water sort of like my mother does when she carefully holds an old setting hen and eases her into a coop where there is a nestful of eggs for her to sit on. Poetry said to the fish, as he let go, “Here, Wally, my friend, you go swimming straight for the other boat away over there!”
Boy, that fish certainly had lots of pep. Being out of the water for that smallish jiffy hadn’t hurt him a bit, although if you are going to let a fish go free after catching him, you are supposed to be very careful to handle him with wet hands, and release him under the water rather than throw him back, and he’ll be more likely to live.
Say, that frisky little walleye made a fierce fast dive straight down into the water, and in a few fast seconds, the yellowish rubber balloon was bobbing up and down like it was a boy’s bobber on a fishing line.... And—would you believe it?—it started to move right in the direction of that other boat—kinda slow though, but actually toward it.
Poetry sighed proudly, leaned back, stuck his thumbs in his arm pits and said, “See there, fish understand my language,” which made Dragonfly say, “That’s ’cause you talk like a fish,” which, for Dragonfly, was almost a bright remark.
I could see, though, that the balloon fish was changing its course. It began working its way a little toward the left and out toward deeper water and farther from shore. We all watched it, having fun, and Poetry kept yelling to it to “Turn to the right!” and to “Hurry up!” but pretty soon when it was maybe fifty yards from us it stopped going in one direction and began to move slowly around in a small circle.
“I’ll bet he’s caught on a snag,” Little Snow-in-the-face said in his cute Indian voice, and it seemed like he might be right, because, even though the balloon bobbed around a little, it didn’t move any farther away, but just seemed to stay more or less in the same place.