Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1884-02-08

slight pull on which raises the butt of
the upper stick and signals the alert fish
erman to it. Wishing my short-time
friends good luck, left them racing with
their fish and went my way. Theirs
could not he called high order of sport,
but 1t Is good fun wherewith to stir the
dullness of winter, for one cannot help
getting excited in the game if the fish are
biting freely and three or four jacks are
up at once. 1t is better than toasting
ones shins at the fire on such day as
this
Presently / was out Upon the broad
bay Of the lake which the old french
explorers named the Bay of the Vessels,
whether for their own craft, the birch
boats of the Indians, or the vessels of
pottery found here, many fragments of
which the lake even now tosses ashore or
exhumes from the banks. If in either
way it would give me one perfect sue
cotash-pot just as it came from the hand
of the Waubanakee squaw that fashioned
it, or with the smutch of camp fire smoke
upon it, should prize it above all the
old china in the world. But was born
too late for such gift, ond get only
rherde
As 1 skirted the rugged, silent Shore
walking where last summer L boated,
there were traces enough of the fierce
fight that had ragged before the cold sub
dued the lake and got it safe under
hatches. All the nearest rocks and trees
were mantled with ice, the spray of the
last waves hurled ashore by the north
wind, and twenty rods lakeward was
line of broken cakes, frozen into jagged
barricade, where the open water made its
| lnet tf,io nt ,1o -
bowk, aud King Frost reignihg supreme
groan rs the sun, his deliverer, climbs
upward and northward. Two months
hence he will be playing tyrant in his
turn, buffeting craft, waterfowl, and
shores.
Beyond the first grim headland that
clasps the bay, l saw some steadfast, up
right specks, which l took to be fisher
men, and, having faith that they knew
better than ] where TO fish, made my way
toward them. Coming nearer, some of
the specks proved to be men, while other
bigger ones turned out to be young ever
green trees set in the ice, better than
the men, likely enough, if they had been
left growing, but now only brush heaps
to break the wind off the smaller specks.
An ignoble use, thought, to put lusty
young tree to for so short time, present
ly to go drifting about the lake. doing no
good to eten 30 much as the eye of man.
How much it might have done if the axe
had spared it for hundred years Oh
these cursed hackers and hewers of trees
| Will they never stay their hands from
destroying The beauty and goodness Of
| the earth ?
Every hole already had its man, if not
its bush, and L had to cut one for myself
SO, slipping the thong of the slick over
my wrist, began chisellipg, like wood
pecker mortising tree for his grub, only
l was boring hap-hazard, while his feath-
cred ear or horny nose leads him straight
to his prey. 1 cannot hear a fish swim,
nor smell one till he is above water or in
the frying-pan. But as grub might be
anywhere in tbs wood. so might fish be
anywhere in the water began to wcn-
der how many bushels of cry stalls one
must hew to come to the water of Petow-
bowk at this season but at last / struck
through to it, and it came to meet me
faster than 1 wished, before I got the
bottom of the hole big enough to let
through the biggest fish l intended to
oatch.
Then / put worm on my hook and
dropped it through the scuttle had made
in the glass roof of the house of the
fishes, and invited them up to take look
at the sky which they bad not seen for SO
many weeks. Sunbeams, moonlight, and
rays o. stars had come to them but dim
ly and distorted in their recent Quiet life !;
but they seemed satisfied with it, undis-
turbed by the tumult of winter storms
and buHeting of waves, and had no de-
sire to see anything Of The world above
board.
For an hour I had such exciting sport
as fishing in the we'll or cistern at home
would have afforded, for not a bite did /
get 1t made it none the pleasanter to
see my nelghDors naJlir 8 OFT both perch
and smelt, while my bait-tcmpting
enough for the best of them, ] thought
dangled untouched, if not unnoticed, by
even the least minnow. l began to i'm
agine my iucaie- or more skilful neigh,
bors the fishermen laughing at me, il they
were not too busy with their own affairs,
and doubted not that my nearer neighbors
Of the neither world were on the broad
grin, peeiins ur al ne
Chow many miles has he come just 10
,, show himself to us and not much to
look at at that, for he is not handsome,
|
: who are making sucn nayoc a,rorg our
friends over there Does he look rather
green? or is il only that we see him
! through this emerald water?'
Some such whispers, / fancied. came
from below. | made my line fast to n
, stick laid across tho hole, and vent visit
ing, for lack of something better to 70,
which is a winter custom in these parts.
y l called first on the nearest fisherman,
an ancient Canuck, so dried up was sur
I prised to see him spit, and SO old, |
- thought, tha' being Of no use at home,
. his grown-up great-grauGtbiliron bad
/ sent him fishing. Here he was valuable,
for he had the gift of his race, and two
! or three dozen lusty perch were lying on
/ black pipe continually in blast when not
: recharging 1t. smoking home grown,
= greenish- black lobacro twisted INTO a
/ half-inch rope which must have been
. endless and go rank that thought the
!, friends cf hs youth in Canada might
! have their memories OF him refreshed
q with sniff of it, now that the south
!, wind w9s blowing As he knew as little
English ~ ] French, we had no very So
:, ciable intercourse, aud II soon grew
= rather dull for both of us. So after q
= short tarry l moved ON to the next hole
:, held by a younger Canadian. He haJ
= conquered the Queens English, which il
= lie did not mtfdrr outright he treated
Il barbarously. He was alec . coDguerol
! ! of fish, and many of his victims lay about
i hin, dead and dying, perch in mail o
e iron and gold, srnelt sheathed in silver
i and herring in mother oi-pearl armor o.
!, all nacreous hues and tints.
= = "You don ketch no feesh, amt it ?" lit
Z cried with a grin. "Wal, das too bad
g Ah'm sorry, me" But I doubted hi
- - sorrowing much for this for these Can
! ucks think all the fish and all the berre
y belong to them.