Morning journal and courier., 1880-07-19
The Prize Fish Story.

The Prize Fish Story.
 A few months ago the Forest and Stream received numerous communications concern | ing pickerel and other fish swallowing each other. The marvelousness of some of these l stories induced the managers of the paper to 1 offer prize ':fish hook" for the best story | It resulted in the most extensive and unique ! accumulation of fish stories ever collected We publish herewith the winning story. If, as hope, the competition is to be fined to perpendicular facts, count me in. About 40 years ago had grandfather iv-
 ing in little valley village of the Green Mountains. At the time to which I refer he was about IS years of age-a vigorous, wiry, energetic old man. Less than year before he had married his third wife, buxom old
 maid of 40. The old gentleman was the will
 lage shoemaker, and in his younger days had
 been quite a successful gunner and fisher
 man. and during his latter years he frequent
 ly tried the pickerel in the large, shallow,
 natural pond some little distance down back
 of the house. It was during the holidays that nomadic Yankee came along selling re- cipes. The old gentleman bought one for making shoemaker's wax, and one for fish charm, a thin paste, which, smeared upon the
 bait, or even on piece of rag, would per suade the fish to come out of their hiding places and gobble said charm if within their 
 charm and left it hanging in the shop. Just after the usual January thaw, when the ground was nearly bare of snow, and the ice on the pond entirely so, the old gentleman took hatchet one afternoon, and crossed
 over the pond to tamarac swamp, after some
 pitch, which entered into the composition of
 the improved ''wax." On hisreturn he came
 across an arm of the pond, caused by the en-
 trance of small spring stream. Theice was
 clear, as well as the shallow water under
 meath, and the old gentleman was astonished
 to see that this little bay was literally alive
 with good-sized pickerel. Although 1t nearly dark he determined to test his fish charm, for the sky showed the near approach of storm, and there was no telling when another opportunity would occur. Quickly cutting hole through the ice he hastened to the shop and got his hook and line, and ruff
 fling a small piece of cotton cloth upon his hook, dipped it into the bottle of charm, and hastened with it dripping toward the pond. Passing through the garden by the way, and breaking four or five feet off of bean pole, he fastened line to 1t, and was soon at the hole in the ice As he approached the hole he could see the pickerel under the ice, fol- lowing him like flock of chickens after their breakfast. Quickly swinging the line over the hole he had lowered it to within perhaps two feet of the water, when pickerel delib- erately came up through the hole with mouth wide open, and was about seizing the bait,
 
 gave him 8 crack with the toe of his boot and sent him sliding away on the surface of the ice.
 He had barely replaced his foot under him self when another pickere1 came out in the same way, and the old gentleman gave him a kick with the other foot and sent him slid ing away on the ice The pickerel kept com ing up and he kept cracking them first with one foot and then the other, like raw re- cruit marking time.' About this time an episode was brewing up at the house which was of more interest to the old gentleman than all the pickere1 in the pond. A blast from the old tin horn struck his ear and he knew what it meant, for it was @ preconcert- ed signal, and he instantly for the house; but as he did so pickerel seized the bait and was hooked, and the old gentleman hung on to the pole and dragged hook and fish over the icy ground, feeling it catch the dry weeds as he rushed ahead without looking back. As he sealed the garden fence the line dragged so heavily that he dropped the pole on the garden side. Stopping but moment in the house he summoned the nearest old lady, then the doctor, and then two more old ladies, who reached the house in time to escape a heavy snow and sleet storm, which set in and lasted till midnight, leaving crust on the snow that would bear up a horse. Before midnight howeveg the writer had aunt in that house years younger than himself. The old gentle man was as tickled as Artemus Ward was over his twins, and made things lively in that house till near morning. when the women persuaded him to take some rest He was up, however, early in the morning, but it was while at late breakfast that he bethought himself of his pickerel. After breakfast he took his hatchet, and went down to the gar den fence. Tracing down along the line he cut away the crust and soon found the picke- rel, frozen stiff, of course. Cutting away the ice, about two-thirds the length of the fish, he came to the head of another pickerel, the tail end of the first one being telescoped into the second one He continued to cut away the ice and soon came to another, into which the second one was telescoped. He kept on finding the fourth and fifth telescop- ed in a like manner. By this time the thing was getting monotonous, so he chopped of the fifth fish, stuck stake by it, and covered the hole with snow to keep the cats away The families of the three old ladies, as we'll as that of the doctor, had fresh fish for dinner that day, and not only that day but at least once 8 week till into March The old gentleman kept mum as to his source of supply, and went quietly every day or two, and cutting down through the crust would follow back on the line of telescoped, frozen pickerel, and cut off 8 supply as if they were links of sausage. My grandfather was a remarkable man. He always remem- bered his friends. For over two months he kept good many of them supplied with fresh fish Finally, in March, there came 8 big thaw and he had to dig up the rest of the line of pickerel and feed them to the hogs and hens. In tracing the line back to the hole in the ice, then frozen up, he cut out a pickerel minus his tail, which was gone close to the lower side of the ice, and thus ''perfect continuity was broken, Upon reopening the hole, however, he perceived the dorsal fin attached to the tail end of a dead pickerel, which was in the mouth of another dead one, but the ice prevented his tracing the line fur ther back. A few days after that Yankee recipe peddler called, and the old gentleman to him confdentially his great suc- cess with the ''charm.' '' They went down to the pond and fished out % feet more of the line of dead pickerel which, to- gether with those already saved, made over nine hundred feet, and there was an average lap of e-third in the telescoping process The Yankee cleaned up the twenty nine feet skeleton, fastened it with white shoe thread wherever it had tendency to part, varnish- ed and coiled it in a lime hogshead, took it to New York and sold it to Barnum, who mount ed it on the wall of the old museum in the form of circle with the tail end inserted in the head end mouth, with this legend upon the wall in the circle: Skeleton of hoop snake from Borneo." The glass case in front prevented close inspection, and the end was not discovered till the museum burned down,