Meade County news. [volume] (Meade, Kan.) 1900-1918, 1903-02-05
LOVE AND A CASTNET.
Copyright, 1905, by Daily stor, Pub Co,
By F. Il. LANCASTER.

His castnetl Paul surveyed It
proudly as it hung in the failing light.
Fully eight feet long. close-meshed
and loaded. Woven of the strongest
sea-island with a bag that would hold
hundred mullet. How many hours
of patient toll it represented, only
Paul Joffrion knew. Hours made up
of minutes snatched from a fisher
| mans over-crowded life. Stitch by
stitch while the other boys rested at
dinner or smoked cigarettes in the
soft afterglow or snored before the
blazing pine-knot fire. So had the
castnet grown. Sometimes the broad
shoulders bent to their task and
| ached from the strain of the days
labor; very often the tired fingers had
cramped with WEAKNESS, but the lads
stubborn will had never faltered.
The day he had brought home his
store of Irvine, the sea-island account
ed the best of its kind. and whitfield
out the soft-pine needle. All, that
had been a proud day. With that
day had begun the thoughts that kept
him awake and working, while others
slept
Sometimes catch plainly. some
times mebbe not catch any. Say, mex
it even, say catch feefty mullet every
night. Two mullet TO- five cents. Das
twenty-five time five cents. Das five
quarters. Say mex one dollar and a
quarter every day. Say it costs me
a quarter a day to leeve,-'bout das.
with tobacco. Das leave me six dollar
wik. Tres bon. l buy him!"
The him" so joyously referred to
being a little two-roomed cabin,
nestled upon point that ran out into
the gulf. 1t was owned by Grabbed
old fisherman who insisted that the
house and its half-dozen sandy acres
was worth fifty dollars. because "she
done fenced on tree side already"
Fenced by the blue waters of the Mex
lean Gulf! Everybody said that the
price was preposterous; the cabin
was on the verge of dilapidation; for
ty dollars was enough and to spare.
But Paul was resolved to have it,
even, as he told himself under his
breath: 'even if have to geeve forty
fie dollars fo' it."
And why?
All because a certain dark-eyed
daughter of the "old man" had praised
the spot.
She was pretty girl, was Marguer-
lite, and her pet name of Bebe seemed
comically out of keeping with her
high head and flashing eyes. The
"old man" was proud of his daugh-
ter and skillfully kept the young men
at a distance. Not but what they
were welcome to his house, very well
come. So welcome that he talked to
them himself,-all the time Never
for a moment deserving his self-ap-
pointed task.
Il fought I'd sect him out. me-"
one of the boys reported. 81 stay
till dark. vas. Late. But das old
man. he wouldn't even so feed hes
horse. No"
Paul was not one of the boys who
had tried to outsit the "old man" ON
the old mans front gallery. He had
a holder plan,-when his castnet was
done and
And at last it was done and from
thence forward every moonless night
when the tide was in Paul might
have been found waist deep in the
water listening for the ruffle of the
mullet. The strong cord of his net
neosed around his left wrist. a lead
between his strong front teeth. Over
his right arm the folds of net care
fully gathered for spreading. Instant
ly, at the ruffie of an oncoming school
the alert figure rose higher and bent
backward in unison with the back
ward swing of the trained right arm,
gathering force for the throw. The
arm swoops forward and the body
with it; the lead flies from between
his teeth; the net from his arm. An,
how beautifully it spreads and sinks
over that school of mullet Truly a
prince of castnets- Slowly he draws
in the line on his left wrist. His
heart thrills at the weight Heavy,
shol Mebbe a hundred. Feel laik
it."
But he cannot investigate his gains
out here. With the heavy wet net and
its catch on his shoulders he wades
sturdily back to the beach. Eth. bien!
it is well, indeed, that his shoulders
are broad and his chest deep.
So the night wore to morning and
he was glad, cleaning his fish and
selling them,-and sleeping like the
dead through the afternoon.
Then there were the nights that
were light, very beautiful with a sill
very beauty, but very bad for the
fisher who fished with castnet. The
next day Paul would walk the beach
with no fish to sell. blue as though
he had had a college education and
was bothered over the social prob
lens" and politics.
Weeks when he met his payments;
weeks when he was short and his
creditor sour; at last in March the