Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1900-08-02
THE VACATION
SEHSON is ON.
Employers and Employees Enjoying
Heated Portion of the Year in
Camp or Some ReCredtive Resort.
the Veterans VITO Remain Are
Won't to Reflect on Bu-gOne DdVs

Won't to Reflect on Bu-gone Ddus
This is the season when the average
business man sits in his office and
o. KS the applications of clerks and
employees for vacations, and watches
the things they take with them on
their trips, and he comments on the
changes that have come since he was
a boy. He sees clerk 90 out of the
door with broad smile and split
bamboo rod, reel of latest device
and a flask that will hold pint, and
he smiles at the outfit. Another goes
of with a breech-loading shotgun,
cartridges loaded to the queens taste
and new hunting clothes of yellow
canvass that would scare duck off
the marsh, shoes of yellow leather
that lace up SO far it will take him
half day to lace them up, and the
other half day to unlace them, and he
smiles at that outfit. Another clerk
has canvas canoe that he carries in
a bag that can be put together when
ne gets to the stream or lake that he
is intending to visit as the case may
be. 1t is one of the kind that rear up
and tip over and dump you in the
drink the first time they get wet.
Other young fellows he will also note
who have lawn tennis racket and
knee breeches, and another has golf
sticks and plaid stockings, with
Scotch cap that would brighten Craw-
ford county natives. A girl clerk
bids him goodbye with smile, rather
pale one, beneath a hat with broad
white feather, just off on an outing
and he knows the smile she brings
back to him will be sunburned and
sweeter. And when they are gone he
sits at his desk and thinks of his boy
hood days, and wonders if the BOYS
will have any more fun on their vaca-
ton than he did as boy when every
day in summer was vacation. He
wonders if his clerks with the split
bamboo rod and canvas boat will
have as much fun catching black bass
and pickerel a he used to when a bow,
sitting on the bank of a sluggish
stream catching bullheadS with
piece Of liver for bait, when every
bullhcad swallowed the bait clear
down to his tail and had to he cut
open with a butcher knife to get the
hook lie can see himself IN the dark
night throwing the pullheads over h:,
head into the dusty road and later
stepping on one Of them with his bare
foot and getting a horn run into tie
foot that caused him 10 walk OH His
toes for i month lie wond ers II the
bullheais lay in the dust or up on
dry bank hours at time NOWADAYS.
and continue to live, with an occasion
a flop u The tail, just to ret chance
70 run a horn into i boy foot He
hears bullheads have gone out OF
style, and is sorry he didn't tell the
clerk to bring him a nice mess from
those he threw away 50 he could 20
out into the kitchen OF his palatial
home and tell the cook to rob them
in cornmeal and fry them in salt pork
fat. Tie thinks, a. he sits there. Of
the old scow his father made Tor him.
and calked with rags. with tar OH the
cracks. and put it in the pond. and
he sailed away bare-footed. with one
suspcnder Of bedticking holding up his
trousers not very strong. and how he
went ous into the lake with shirt
for a sail, more than twenty rods be-
fore tie boat filled with water and he
had to paddle it back to shore with
his bare feet for screw propeller.
He remembers getting out oakum,
and a chisel. and sitting up half the
night to drive it into the cracks and
how proud he was when it was dry
all next day and he filled enc end OF
it with perch and sunfish. He has
rode in yachts and steam boats since,
but has never had so much fun a he
did that day with the scow lis father
made. and while he has caught fish in
many waters. he has never felt 20
good a. he did when catching bull
heads, perch and suniish in the old
pond near home. He wonders if that
clerk who went off with the gun
knows how to surround squirrel on
the limb Of tall tree and regrets
that he did not give the clerk few
pointers about squirrels, as be remem-
ber- how tight they will lay t. the
top Of link when you are trying tot
get a shut at them, and look over al
you with one eye not bigger than the
head II black pin. with not a hair
showing over the limb. He wishes