’Twas a holiday joy when I was a boy,

To follow the brook a-trouting,

’Twas gold of pleasure without alloy,

To trudge away through the livelong day—

Not a bite to eat, or a word to say,

And never a failing or doubting.

Then home at night in a curious plight—

Heavy and tired and hungry quite—

With a string of the “speckles” hung out of sight,

And a chorus of boyish shouting.

Only a line of the commonest twine,

Only a pole of alder;

None of your beautiful things that shine—

Tackle so nice and so high in price

That a trout would laugh to be taken twice.

And sing like a Swedish scalder

For a jump at a sign of a thing so fine,

And scorn rough implements such as mine;

Only a line of the commonest twine—

Only a pole of alder!

Wet to the skin in our raiment thin—

Never a word of complaining,

Never too late in the day to begin;

Dropping a hook in the beautiful brook

Till day was taking his farewell look

No matter how hard it was raining!

Ah! few, indeed, would fail to succeed

In the angling of life—if they’d only heed

The trout-boy’s patience, whatever impede,

And his joy, both in seeking and gaining.

—Belle A. Hitchcock.