The Rival Campers Ashore; or, The Mystery of the Mill

by Ruel Perley Smith

Another splash, and a harder one. Tim Reardon "struck" and the fish was fast. Now it lashed the water furiously, fighting for its life. But it was not a big fish, and Tim Reardon lifted it clear of the water so that it swung in where he could clutch it with eager hands. Grasping it just back of the gills, he disengaged the hook cautiously, avoiding the sharp rows of teeth that lined the long jaws. He slung the pickerel on the line, and whistled gleefully.

It was a royal day for fishing; with just a thin shading of clouds to shield the water from the glare of sun; the water still and smooth; the shadows very black in the shady places.

It is safe to say, no one in all Benton knew the old stream like Tim Reardon. He fished it day after day from morn till evening, before and after school hours, and now in the vacation at all times. Tom Harris and Bob White knew it as canoeists; but Tim Reardon, following the ins and outs of its shores for miles above the Ellison dam, knew every little turn and twist in its shore.

He knew the places where the pickerel hid; where the water was swift, or shallow, or choked with weeds, and where to leave the shore and make a detour through the grain fields past these places. There were deep pools where the pickerel seldom rose to the troll, but asked to have their dinner sent down to them in the form of a fresh shiner; and Tim Reardon knew these pools, and when to remove the troll and put on his sinker and live bait.

He could have told you every inch of the country between Ellison's dam and the falls four miles above; where you would find buckwheat fields; where the corn patches were; where apple orchards bordered them; where the groves of beech-trees were, with the red squirrel colonies in the stumps near-by; and where the best place was to pause for noon luncheon, in the shade of some pines, where there was a spring bubbling up cool on the hottest days, in which you could set a bottle of coffee and have it icy cold in a half-hour.

There were big hemlocks along the way, in the rotted parts of which the yellow-hammers built their nests and laid their white eggs; hard trees to climb, with their huge trunks. He knew the time to scale the tall pines where the crows built, to find the scrawny young birds, with wide-open mouths and skinny bodies, that looked like birds visited by famine. He knew where the red columbines blossomed on the face of some tall cliffs, where the stream flowed through a rocky gorge; and how to crawl painfully down a zigzag course from the top to gather these, at the risk of falling seventy feet to the rocks below.

There were a thousand and one delights of the old stream that were a joy to his heart—though one would not have expected to find sentiment lodged in the breast of Little Tim. As for the boy, he only knew that it was all very dear to him, and that the whole valley of the stream was a source of perpetual happiness.

He waded ashore now and went on, his pole over his shoulder, whistling, filled with an enjoyment that he could not for the world have described; but which was born amid the singing of the stream, the droning of bees, the noises of birds and insects, in a lazy murmur that filled all the quiet valley.

It was rare fun following the winding of that stream; among little hills, by the edges of meadows and through groves of mingled cedars and birches. Now and then he would rest and watch its noiseless flowing, past some spot where the branches hung close over the water; where the stream flowed so smoothly and quietly that the shadows asleep on its surface were never disturbed.

The noon hour came, and Little Tim seated himself for his luncheon on a knoll carpeted with thick, tufted grass. A kingfisher, disturbed by his arrival, went rattling on his way upstream. And as the boy drew from his dingy blouse a scrap of brown paper, enclosing a bit of bread and cheese, and laid it down beside him, the stream seemed to be dancing just before him at the tune he whistled; a swinging, whirling dance from shore to shore; a butterfly dance, through a setting of buttercups and daisies; with here and there a shaft of sunlight thrown upon it, where the thin clouds parted.