IT was twenty feet long, and cost ten cents—a whole week’s keeping-the-woodbox-filled wages. To select it from amid its sheaf of fellows towering high beside the shop entrance summoned all your faculties and the faculties of four critical comrades, assisted by the proprietor himself.

“That’s the best of the lot,” he encouraged, not uninfluenced by a desire to be rid of you.

So you planked down your money, and bore off the prize; and a beautiful pole it was—longer by three feet, as you demonstrated when they were laid cheek by jowl, than that of your crony Hen.

Forthwith you enthusiastically practised with it in the back yard, to show its capabilities, while the hired girl, impeded by its gyrations, fretfully protested that you were “takin’ all outdoors.”

Your father viewed its numerous inches and smiled.

You clothed it with hook and line, an operation seemingly simple, but calling for a succession of fearful and wonderful knots, and a delicate adapting of length to length.

Thereafter it always was ready, requiring no fitting of joint and joint, no adjustment of reel, threading of eye, and attaching of snell. In your happy-go-lucky ways you were exactly suited the one to the other.

During its periods of well-earned rest it reposed across the rafters under the peak of the woodshed, the only place that would accommodate it, although in the first fever gladly would you have carried it to bed with you.

Half the hot summer afternoon Hen and you dug bait, for you and he were going fishing on the morrow. Had you been obliged to rake the yard as diligently as you delved for worms you would have been on the verge (for the hundredth time) of running away and making the folks sorry; but there is such a wide gulf betwixt raking a yard and digging bait that even the blisters from the two performances are totally distinct.

With a prodigality that indicated at the least a week’s trip, you plied your baking-powder can—the cupboard was continually stripped of baking-powder cans, in those days—with long, fat angle worms and short, fat grubs; and topping them with dirt to preserve their freshness, you set them away till the morning.

Then, with mutual promises to “be on time,” Hen and you separated.

“I suppose,” said father, gravely, to mother, across the table, at supper, “that I needn’t order anything at Piper’s (Piper was the butcher) for a few days.”

“Why so?” asked mother, for the moment puzzled.

“We’ll have fish, you know.”

“Sure enough!” agreed mother, enlightened, and glancing at you. “Of course; Johnny’s going fishing.”

From your end of the table you looked keenly at the one and at the other and pondered. If the show of confidence in you was genuine, how gratified and proud you felt! But was it? Father went on soberly eating; mother, transparent soul, smiled at you, as if in reparation, and winked both eyes.

You grinned confusedly, and bent again to your plate. Yes, they were making fun of you. But who cared! And you had mental revenge in the thought that perhaps you’d show them.

You turned in early, as demanded by the strenuous day ahead. To turn you out no alarm-clock was necessary. The sun himself was just parting the pink hangings of the east, and on earth apparently only the roosters and robins were astir, when, with a hazy recollection of having fished all night, you scrambled to the floor and into your clothes.

Mother’s voice sounded gently outside the door.

“Johnny?”

“Yes; I’m up.”

“All right. I was afraid you might oversleep. Now be careful to-day, won’t you, dear?”

Again you assured her. You heard her soft steps going back down the stairs. She never failed to make your rising her own, both to undertake that you should not be disappointed and to deliver a final loving caution.

Your dressing, although accompanied by sundry yawns, was accomplished quickly, your attire for the day being by no means complicated. Your face and hair received what Maggie, the girl, would term “a lick and a promise,” and kitchenward you sped.

To delay to eat the crackers and milk that had been provided was a waste of time; but you had been instructed, and so you gobbled them down. On the kitchen table was your lunch, tied in shape convenient to stow about your person. It was a constant fight on your part with mother to make her keep your lunches at the minimum. Had she her way, you would have traveled with a large basket; and what boy wanted to be bothered with baskets and pails and things?

Upon the back porch, where you had stationed them in minute preparation, had been awaiting you all night the can of bait and the loyal pole. You seized them. Provisioned and armed, you ran into the open and looked expectantly for Hen.

From Hen’s house came no sign of life. You whistled softly; no Hen. Your heart sank. Once or twice before Hen had failed you. Affairs at his house seemed to be not so systematized as at yours.

You whistled louder; no Hen. You called, your voice echoing along the still somnolent street.

“All right,” suddenly responded Hen, sticking his head out of his window.

He was not even up!

You were disgusted. One might as well not go fishing as to start so late and have all the other fellows there first; and you darned “it” gloomily.

After seemingly an age, but with his mouth full and with other tokens of haste, Hen emerged from the side door.

“Bridget promised to call me and she forgot to wake up,” he explained.

Had Hen your mother, he would have been better cared for. But, then, households differ.

At last you were off, your jacket, necessary as a portable depository, balanced with lunch, and the can of worms snugly fitted into a pocket, over the hard-boiled eggs; your mighty pole, become through many pilgrimages a veteran, sweeping the horizon; and your gallant old straw, ragged of contour and prickly with broken ends, courting, like some jaunty, out-at-the-elbow, swash-buckler cavalier, every passing breeze.

As you and Hen hurried along, how you chattered, the pair of you, with many a brag and “I bet you” and bit of exciting hearsay! How big you were with expectations!

“By jinks! I pity the fish to-day!” bantered “Uncle” Jerry Thorne, hoe in hand in his garden patch, stiffly straightening to watch you as you pattered by.

You did not answer. Onward stretched your way. Moments were precious. Who could tell what might be happening ahead at the fishing-place? Busier cackled the town hens, into view rolled the town’s sun, from town chimneys here and there idly floated breakfast smoke. The town was entering upon another day, but you—ah, you were destined afar and you must not stay.

To transport your pole, at times inclined to be unruly, with its line ever reaching out at mischievous foliage and its hook ever leaving butt or cork and angling for clothing, was an engineering feat demanding no slight ingenuity. The board walk, which later would be baking hot, so that the tender soles of barefooted little girls would curl and shrink and seek the grass, was gratefully cool, blotched as it was with dampness from the dripping trees. When the walk ceased, the road lay moist and velvety, the path was wet and cold, the fringing bushes spattered you with diamonds, and the lush turf, oozing between your toes, gave to your eager tread.

Rioted thrush and woodpecker and all their feathered cousins; higher into the silver-blue sky climbed the sun, donning anon his golden robes of state; one last impatient halt, to extract your hook from your coat collar, and now, your happy legs plashed knee over with dew and clinging dust, you had reached your goal.

You and Hen were not the first of the day’s fishermen. As the vista of bank and water unfolded before your roving eyes you descried a rival already engaged. By his torn and sagging brim, by his well-worn shirt, by his scarred and faded overalls, draggling about his ankles and dependent upon one heroic strap, you recognized a familiar. It was Snoopie—Snoopie Mitchell, who always was fishing, because he never had to ask anybody’s permission.

Snoopie’s flexible life appeared to you the model one.

“Hello, Snoop!” called you and Hen.

“Hello!” responded Snoopie, phlegmatically, desisting a moment from watching his cork, as he squatted over his pole.

“Caught anything yet?”

“Jus’ come,” vouchsafed Snoopie. “They ain’t bitin’ much. But yesterday—gee! you ought to’ve been here yesterday!”

No doubt; that usually was the way when you had to stay at home.

You tugged your bait from its tight lodgment; you peeled off your coat and tossed it aside as you would a scabbard; with feverish fingers, lest Hen should beat you, hopeful that you might even outdo Snoopie, you unwrapped your gallant pole of its line, and selecting a plump worm, slipped it, despite its protesting squirms, adown the hook.

The favorite stands at this resort were marked by their colonies of tinware—bait-cans cast away upon the grass and mud, some comparatively bright and recent, many very rusty and ancient, their unfragrant sighs horrifying the summer zephyrs. You sought your stand and threw in.

From his stand Hen also threw in.

An interval of suspense ensued. The placid water was full of delightful possibilities. What glided therein that might be caught! You besought your bobber with a gaze almost hypnotic; but the bobber floated motionless and obdurate.

“Snoopie’s got a bite!”

At the announcement you darted apprehensive glances in Snoopie’s direction. You were greedy enough to harbor the wish—but, ah!

“Snoopie’s got one! Snoopie’s got one!”

Snoopie’s pole had energetically reared upward and backward, and, as if at its beckoning, something small, black, and glistening had popped straight out from the glassy surface before and had flown high into the brush behind.

Snoopie rushed after, and Hen and you discarded everything and rushed, too.

“Jus’ a bullhead!”

So it was, and quite three inches long.

Snoopie ostentatiously strung it on a bit of cord and tethered it, at the water’s edge, to a stake. Then he threw in again and promptly caught another.

Somehow, Snoopie invariably did this. He was lucky in more respects than one.

From each side Hen and you sidled toward him and put your bobbers as near his as you dared.

“G’wan!” objected Snoopie, with shrill emphasis. “What you kids comin’ here for? Go find your own places. I got this first.”

Presently, to your agony, Hen likewise jerked out an astonished pout.

“Ain’t you had any bites yet?” he fired triumphantly at you.

“How deep you got your hook?” you replied.

Hen held his line so that you might see. To miss no chances, you measured accurately with a reed. Once more you adjusted your cork, moving it up a fraction of an inch, and you spat on your baited hook.

Again you threw in, landing your now irresistible lure the length of your pole and line from the shore.

“Quit your splashin’!” remonstrated Snoopie. “I had a dandy bite, an’ you scared him away. Darn you! can’t you throw in easy?”

The ripples caused by your bobber widened in concentric circles and died. You watched and waited. A kingfisher dived from his post upon a dead branch, and rising with a minnow in his bill to show you how easy it was, dashed away, laughing derisively.

With a quick exclamation, Hen swished aloft the tip of his pole.

“Golly! but I had a big nibble! He took the cork clear under!” he cried.

You wondered fiercely why you couldn’t have a nibble.

As if in answer to your mute prayer, your bobber quivered, spreading a series of little rings. An electric thrill leaped through your whole body, and your fingers tightened cautiously around the well-warmed butt, which they had been caressing in vain.

“I’ve got a bite! I’ve got a bite!” you called gleefully.

Hen and Snoopie turned their faces to witness what might take place.

Then your cork was stricken with intermittent palsy, and then it staggered and swung as though it had a drop too much. Your sporting blood aflame, you bided the operations of the rash meddler who was causing this commotion.

The cork tilted alarmingly, so that the water wetted it all over. With a jump and a burst of pent-up energy (no cat after a mouse could be quicker), you whipped the heavens with your great pole; but only an empty hook followed after.

“Shucks!” you lamented.

“Aw, you jerked too soon!” criticised Snoopie.

“Darn him! he ate all my bait, anyhow!” you declared. “See?”

With utmost speed you fitted another worm and very smoothly let down exactly in the same spot.

Scarcely had the cork settled when it resumed its erratic movements. Its persecutor, whatsoever he might be, was a persistent chap.

“Bitin’ again?” inquired Snoopie, noting your strained attitude.

You nodded; the moment was too vital to admit of conversation.

“I got him! I got him! I—”

You had exulted too soon. Out like a feather you had whisked the meddlesome fellow, but in mid-air, unable to maintain the sudden pace, he parted company with the impaling steel. Down he dropped, and while the lightened hook went on without him he dived into the shallows where mud meets water.

You abandoned your pole; you plunged after him. Upon hands and knees you wallowed and grappled with him. With fish instinct, he was wriggling for the deeps and safety. You grasped him. He slid through your clutch. You grabbed at him again and obtained a pinching hold on his tail. He broke the hold and was off.

“Get him!” shrieked Snoopie.

“Get him!” shrieked Hen.

Desperately you scooped up the slime. Once more you had him. He stabbed you with his needle-like spines, but you flinched not. You hurled him inshore and tore after, not allowing him an instant’s respite.

There! He lay gasping upon the drier bank. He had lost, and out of his one piggish eye not plastered shut he signaled surrender.

Of the two parties to the wrestle you were much the muddier.

“How big?” queried Hen, anxiously.

“Oh, ’bout as big as the first one Snoop caught,” you replied, which was strictly the truth.

You devoted a few seconds to squeezing your pricked thumb; then pleasantly aware that several new arrivals were viewing your success, you gingerly strung him and deposited him, thus secured, in his native element. Here he flopped a moment, but finding his efforts useless, sulked out of sight.

You baited up; you were more contented.

Two pole-lengths from shore occurred a quick splash and a swirl.

“Gee!” burst simultaneously from the three of you; and you stared with wide eyes at the spot where the bubbles were floating.

“What was that?” ejaculated Hen.

“A big bass, I bet you,” averred Snoopie.

Nobody—within your memory, at least—ever had actually caught a “big bass” in these haunts, but upon various occasions, such as the present one, he had made himself known. To doubt his existence was heresy. He was here; of course he was. Nearly to see him was an exploit accomplished by many; nearly to catch him was accomplished by only a few less: but really to haul him out had been accorded to none.

In the meantime he cruised about, in his mysterious way, and now and then made a rumpus on the surface, to wring a tribute of hungry “Gees!” from the astounded spectators of his antics.

You gripped closer your pole and barely breathed. Perhaps he was heading in your direction; perhaps, at last, he would accept your worm, and, glory! you would be the boy to carry him through town, and home! Could anything be more deliriously grand?

On the other hand, misery! perhaps he was heading for Snoopie or Hen. However, he might turn aside.

Silence reigned; the atmosphere was tense with expectation. Another swirl, a small one, off a brush-pile nearer the shore, just to your left. Cautiously you tiptoed down there and craftily introduced your tempting hook.

The cork vibrated. For an instant you lost your breath. The cork dipped. You poised, rigid but alert, daring to stir not even a toe. The cork righted, dipped again, and slowly, calmly sank into the pregnant depths.

Furiously you struck. Your good pole bent and swayed. You were wild with excitement.

“Say! Look there! Look at John!” exclaimed Hen.

“Hang on to him! Don’t let him get away!” bawled Snoopie.

Spurred by your down-curving pole and your violent endeavors, they scampered madly to your succor.

“Don’t you give him slack!” instructed Snoopie. “He’ll get loose!”

“Don’t bust the pole, either!” warned Hen.

As for you, you were fighting with all your strength. The line was taut, sawing the water, as valiantly you hoisted with the writhing tip. Your antagonist yielded a few inches, only to demand them back again. You were in deadly fear lest the hook would not hold. You hoped that he had swallowed it. But who might tell?

At any rate, you were determined that he should not have a vestige more of line if you could help it.

“Can you feel him?” asked Hen.

“Uh huh,” you panted affirmatively.

“Gimme the pole,” ordered Snoopie.

You shook your head. You wanted to do it all yourself.

Little by little, in response to the relentless leverage that you exerted, your victim was being dragged to the surface. Higher and higher was elevated your pole, and the wet line followed. The cork appeared and left the water. Victory was almost yours, but you would not relax.

“It’s nothin’ but a snag!” denounced Snoopie.

You would not believe. It was—if it was not the big bass, it was something else wonderful.

A second—and up through the heaving area upon which were fixed your eyes broke a black stem. Swifter it exposed itself, and suddenly you had hoisted into the sunlight an ugly old branch, soaked and dripping, wrenched by your might from the peaceful bed where it long had lain.

Amid irritating jeers you swung it to shore.

“Well, I had something all right—and it was a bass, too; and he snagged my hook on me. He took the bobber under in less’n no time, I tell you!” you argued defensively.

That was a favorite trick of the “big bass” and other prodigies of these waters—to be almost caught and to escape by cleverly snagging the hook.

Hen and Snoopie returned to their stations. You ruefully twisted your hook from the rotten wood and tried in a new place for bullheads.

You tired of this location and changed to a log; and tiring of the log, you changed to a rock; and tiring of the rock, you changed to a jutting bank; and tiring of the bank, you waded into the shallows, where, at least, the flies could not torment your legs. In the course of your wanderings your can toppled; you snatched at it but it evaded you, gurgled, and gently sank beneath. You borrowed bait from more or less unwilling brethren, or appealed to the most respectable of the riffraff cans scattered about. From the zenith the sun glared down upon your neck, and from the water the sun glared up into your face, and neck and face waxed red and redder; turtles poked their heads forth and inspected you; and dragon-flies darted at your bobber and settled upon it, giving you starts as you thought for an instant that you had a bite. You pricked your fingers on the “stingers” of vengeful victims, and you cut your feet on tin and shell and sharp root and branch; you luxuriously dined on butter-soaked bread and salt-less eggs (the salt being spilled), and you drank of water which, in these scientific later days, we know with horror to have been alive with deadly bacilli; and Snoopie, lying on his back, with his hat over his eyes, tied his line to his big toe and went to sleep.

Finally, spotted with mud and mosquito-bumps, scarlet with burn and bristling with experiences, in the sunset glow homeward you trudged, over your shoulder your faithful pole, and your hapless spoil, ever growing drier and dustier and more wretched, dangling from your hand.

“Mercy, John! What do you bring those home for!” expostulated mother, from a safe distance surveying your catch, none thereof longer than a clothes-pin.

“Why, to eat,” you explained.

And she fried them for you, her very self.