The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1904-03-31
with their 73-cent outfits. Quite a
sporty bunch, believe me.

We meandered to the brook. If it
had been any other season of the year,
we would have walked like rational
beings. AS it was we simply mean
dered and soon was giving Mrs. H.
practical demonstrations in the gentle
art of catching gudgeons. Such fun
for her. l enjoyed it, because she did.
But honestly, if ABill Diggs ever pro-
poses gudgeon fishing to newell. the
prospect is too narrowing. The fish
were so small that your cork seldom
went under. That's a fact. All nibbles
looked alike to me. You couldn't lose.
Just every so often you jerked the rod
and the two-inch monster would quiet
ly emerge from the briny depths. Only
those depths weren't briny and were
but four feet deep. Goodness me!
I wonder how many gross we caughtp
When Mrs. H. hooked her first one, she
turned to me and exclaimed, "Look |!
look! 1 caught one! I caught onep
Then [ had to pretend that her success
was amazing and as seriously as 1
could 1 disengaged the gudgeon and
placed it in her trembling hand.
CO." she exclaimed, "it's alive!"
Gall alive and wriggling," rejoined.
"What shame!"
"Not necessarily"
Without further remark Mrs. H.
threw the gudgeon back in the water.
"It's fun" said she, "to catch 'em but
cruel to keep 'em."
"Mrs. H." said I kindly but firmly,
"you have violated all fishing laws.
There is a we'll grounded suspicion in
the minds of fishermen that fish
which escapes Immediately tells his
companions of their danger and thus
the fishing becomes bad"
"Can fish talk ?" asked the innocent.
"Can theyl Ask Bill Diggs about it,"
"Then," said she, "I'm glad did it,
for if they can talk they can think,
and if they think they can feel, and 1
wouldn't hurt that poor little ish's
feelings for the world.'
l inwardly groaned, but by logic and
persuasion 1 induced Mrs. H. to re-
sumo her fishing and after short time
she became as enthusiastic as it is pos
sible for gudgeon fisher to be. When
we had caught somewhere around 5000,
l showed her how to sand them. Sand
ing gudgeons is simply partly burying
them in the sand on the beach aud rub
bing with the hands until the minute
scales are off. We sanded for some
time and then went to the shade tree
on the bank where we ate our luncheon
Somehow or other, that luncheon re-
mains in my memory as one of the fin
est ever ate. Probably because Mrs
H. prepared it. The chicken sand
wiches were just right. True, some
big red ants persisted in walking all
over the pie and several had the audac-
ity to sit down in the butter. Mrs. H.
would never have tolerated it at home,
but as she coquettishly said, "We've
got to stand 1t, because we're camping
out"
I made several trips for drinking
water, which brought in an old tin
can just full of rust, but Mrs. H. said
it was better than from the finest cut
glass. 1 suppose she was right. I've
no other way of knowing, for L never
drank from cut glass in my life-that
is when sober. Ali afternoon we
hauled 'em in; they were caught by
ones and twos at first, but they got
reckless and when around 3 o'clock
Mrs. H. began to hook gudgeons by
their sides, gills and tails l called q
halt and we put in the next hour clean
ing the fish.
One swipe and the gudgeon's cleaned.
Regular pudding if you didn't have SO
many to clean. We washed them all
after cleaning and lined our lunch
basket with fresh green leaves and put
the make believe fish inside. We
caught the 4:3O train and it wasn't long
until the brakeman yelled:
"Burrallerrp
"This is the city," said 1.
"Is it?" said Mrs. Fl. "How can you
tell?"
"Didn't you hear the brakeman say
Baltimore just as plain as he could ?"
Mrs. H. only giggled.