Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1901-08-01
A Fish Story.

In the Chesapeake and her tribute streams,
Where broadening out to the bay they come,
And the great fresh water meets the brine.
There swims FISH that is called the drum
a fish of wonderful beauty and force,
That bites like steel-trap and pulls like a
horse.
He is heavy of girth at the dorsal fin.
But taPering downward, keen and thin;
Long as salmon, if not so stout,
And springy and swift as themountain trout;
For often at night, in a sportive mood,
He comes to the brim of the moonlit food,
And tosses glttering curve aloft,
Like the silver bow of the god-then soft
He FLASHES deliciously back in the spray,
And tremulous circles go spreading away.
Down by the marge of the York's broad
stream,
An old darkey lived, of the ancient regime;
His laugh was loud, though his lot was low
He loved his old master, and hated his hoe.
Small and meagre was this old Ned,
For many long winters had frosted his head
And bated his force and vigor;
But, though his wool all white had become,
And his face wrinkled up like wash-wo-
mans thumb,
And his back was bent, he was thought by
some,
A remarkably hale old niger.
But he suffered, he said, from steady attack
OF misery in ode head an pain in de back. +"
Till his old master gave him s'his time to
hisself,"
And the toil-worn old bondsman was laid
on the shelf.
Happy old Edwardi his labor was done,
With nothing to do but sit in the sun,
And free to follow his darling wish
Of playing his fiddle and catching his fish.
He had earned his play-time with labor long
And so, like the other Old Ned in the song,
He 'laid down the shovel and the hoe,''
And caught up the fiddle and the bow.
Now, cannot say
That his style of play
Would suit the salons of the present day;
For the tours de force of the great Paganini
Have never found favor in sold Virginny."
He never played tune that "went Slow"
For he perfectly scorned an adagiO;
But, with eyes half-closed, and a time
beating toe,
His elbow squared and his resinous bow,
Not going up high, nor going down low,
But saving quite steadily just in the middle,
He played by the rule
Of the strictest school
Of the old fashioned plantation niger fiddle.
1t happened old Ned went fishing one day,
And out on the blue,
In his dug-out canoe,
He carried his fiddle along to play.
Long he fished with his incest art;
There came not a nibble to gladden. his
heart;
So he tied his line to his ankle tight,
To be ready to haul if a fish should bite,
And siezed his fiddle. So sweet did he play
The waves leaped up in laugh of spray,
And dimpled and sparkled as if to move
To invisible water-nymphs dancing above.
But slower and slower he drew the bow,
And soft grew the music, soft and low;
The lids fell wearily over the eyes;
The bow-arm stopped, and the melodies;
The last strain melted along the deep;
And Ned, the old fisherman, sunk to sleep.
Just then huge drum, sent hither by Fate,
Caught passing gleam of the tempting bait,
And darted upon it with greedy NAV,
And ran the hook in his upper jaw.
One terrible jerk of wrath and dread
From the wounded fish as away he sped
With strength by rage made double,
And into the water went Old Ned
No time for any .'last words" to be said
For the waves settled placidly over his head,
And his last remark was bubble.
Let US veil the struggle beneath the brine;
OF the darting fish and the tangling line.
The battle, of course, was short one, since
Old Ned, not gifted with gills or fms,
AS mermaid, would be in a trotting race;
And motionless soon at the bottom he lay,
AS mute as the fiddle that fioated away.
They were washed ashore by the heaving
tide,
And the fishermen found them side by side,
In common death, and together bound
In the line that circled them round and
round,
So looped and tangled together
That their fate was involved in the dark
mystery
OF which was the catcher and which the
catchee;
For the fish was hooked hard and fast by
the gill,
And the darkey was lassoed around the heel,
And each had died by the other.
The fishermen thought it could never be
known,
After all their thinking and figuring,
Whether the niger a-hshing had gone,
Or the fish had gone a-niggering.
INNES RANDOLPH