Lon deliberated a moment, while the boys, getting hint of a story, drew closer.
“Well, I say I saw the big fellow, but that’s sort o’ misleadin’. I didn’t see well enough to go to measurin’ or estimatin’ in feet and inches, or in pounds, for that matter. But I did see Old Man Freeman’s William Trout, and he was a buster, I tell ye!”
“Freeman’s William Trout?” Sam repeated. “What’s that? A species?”
“Nope—straight brook trout. Leastwise, Old Man Freeman said so.”
“Seems to me I’ve heard of Freeman,” Poke put in. “Guess my father knew about him.”
“Likelier your grandfather. ’Twas a good ways back when he flourished. I was a little shaver fust off in our acquaintance.”
“Let’s have the story!” cried Step.
“Yes—the story!” echoed Poke.
“Well, I ain’t got my notes with me, but I’ll do my best to entertain the company,” said Lon. “Way of it was this: When I was the age of you chaps—no; I guess ’twas when I was a size smaller—there wasn’t anything I’d rather do than get out on a good brook ’long in the spring. And there wa’n’t many brooks in my part o’ the country that I didn’t try to see if they was good or not. So that was how, workin’ along a stream way back in the hills one day, I stumbled on Old Man Freeman’s place.
“It was a new brook to me, and there was a lot of woods, so I was doin’ a heap o’ wadin’, the brook bein’ the nearest thing to a path there was. I wasn’t payin’ much attention to the scenery, and I guess I plumb forgot it when I come to jest about the most promisin’ lookin’ pool you ever sot eyes on. But I hadn’t more’n dropped in my hook when there was a roar like a bull’s, and a wild old codger was rushin’ at me. He grabbed me by the collar, and yanked me up the bank, and began to shake my back teeth loose. Course, I wriggled and fit like a cat, but ’twa’n’t no use. Mebbe that was so plain it kinder reminded him what a little fellow I was, for, after a while, he quit treatin’ me like a bottle o’ medicine before takin’, and stopped to have a good look at me. Then he asked me, mighty sharp, what in tarnation I meant by tryin’ to catch his pet trout Bill, and why I didn’t stay home and tend to my own business, or couldn’t my folks find nothin’ for me to do.