The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1904-06-04
KID KEPT The
OLD MAN BUSY
COL. WHEATON TELLS OF A
MUCH-OAUGHT TROUT.
Boy Waited Until His Grandfather
Slumbered and Then Slipped the
Fish Back on the Old Mans Line
How the Scheme Worked.

to tt.-Philosophy Of Col. Wheaton
Aren't there woeful lot OF disappointed
hopes, shattered dreams and busted"
booms contained in that little word 'if''?
When properly seen into, it is the most
Internal word in any old language from
United States to Eskimo. If Grouchy had
come up, and If Butcher hadn't, Napol-
con would never have been 'the immense
somnambulist of the shattered dream; If
the Hon. Thomas Collier Plat had not
schemed to shelve Col. Roosevelt by max
ing him vice president, Colonel Roosevelt
would not be president Of the Tinted
States to-day; If Viceroy Alexieff had
''been onto his job, kept the Russian
fleet in a body, and been altogether pre-
pared to tnaugurate trouble htmself-as
party looking for it always ought to be-.
the cZar's path in Manchuria and Korea
would look more like a rose garden than
1t does just now; and If Providence had
sent settlers who were not so very we'll
up in the mystery of making and using all
kinds Of nets, to people the arabic lands
around Trout lake, the fishing there
wouldn't be the mournful Renaissance Of
what it used to be that it is, After we
had tried for three straight Sundays and
used every device known to fishermen
without getting bite we came reluctant
ly to the conclusion that the lake was
gastados as the Spaniards say, and babe
w
trips we had not even a pickerel to
"show cause" not even yarn from
Colonel Wheaton, and, wonder of won
ders he rode the distance home in
regular swearing train and never
spoke. AS Sidney Smith said Of Macau-
ley, HE has occasional flashes Of silence
that make his conversation perfectly de-
lightful,' but those flashes are like to
| the frail dam that held the waters above
doomed Johnstown. When they do give
way the result Is a flood that sweeps
| everything before it. AS was the case
after we got home again, and gathered
! around the coloneIs hospitable board for
| supper. His silence broke up then, and
much as thus he began and continued:
"Course them farmers round that
| blamed lakes netted 1t to death, but
! then we hoodooed our own sells by not
| takin' a boy long. What good'd a boy
| done? That's easy saw. He'd a sure
rugged up some scheme that'd turned
the luck f he didn't manage to drown
himself, or some Of us. T'any rate he'd a
kicked up some excitement sure, an
there was blame little in skellyhootin' all
over the lake all day for three days, n
never havin' a fin to show fer it. Why,
you remember that big railroad man at
| come up here bout three years ago, m
would insist on goin' out to the lake after
the trout chad quit bitin. He had the
price, n thought, he did, that he ought
to git anything he was willin' to pay for.
An right there's where he was way off.
All the money in the world can't buy any
thing that amt fer sale, an ten times as
much can't make the fish bite when they
don't want to, N 7 did my derndest to
explain that to him. But he'd been a
havin' his own way so long that I might
as we'll wasted time tryin' to git it thru
an Ingun's head. Sos he was bound to
IrrN - It. YT11s
| was a dead game old sport too's some OF
you fellers remember, I'll bet, N the night
fore we went out he stayed up all night
playtn' poker with a lot of the town
! sports, m he didn't git none too much the
best of it either jedged from the way he
Kicked and, snarled all the way out to the
lake, n after we got there. He'd fetched
his gran'son along, reg'ler little devil
he was, bout the size o. Bets bigges'
boy, m when we got there he insisted on
i havin' swivel cheer fixed in the boat,
m soon's that was done, we put out
i hshtn'. I'd took that zinc lined box of. the
old mans long to keep the trout in good
shape, eff he got any, and b'gosh we
handn't got forty rod from the dock fore
he hooked nice one, m we had him in
the boat in short order I passed him
back to the boy, m had him put him in
the box, n the kid filled it half full OF
water to keep the trout alive all of his
own notion. Then the old man took q
COW swallow drink, bout the fifteenth
he'd took since we lef' town, m in less'n
no time he was fas' sleep in his cheer
n snorin' to beat a fog horn. But pretty
! soon he woke up with a yell, m got busy
right away with his reel, m fore long ur
i comes another trout, m the kid got the
net under him in fine style, lifted him In
m put him in the box just's as wells
could. I oughter mistrusted somethin
count of that kid not a gittin' into NJ
J devilment could see, fer that's plat,
sign a boys up to tricks of some kind o.
ruther, but I didn't mistrust nothin', m
neither did the railroad man, fer he wa:
asleep, m snorin' agin in less'n no time
We had that thunderin' big old scow o
a boat Washburn used to have, the rail-
. road man he wouldn't have no other, n
/; she was mighty hard to pull, but we be
gun to ketch trout right along, m ketcl
. EN- to boot where I'd never ketched n,
trout before, ner heerd of anybody els
dom it, m I got a wonderin' so wha
9 made luck run so blamed funny I fergo
how hard was a-workin'. Well, tina
= thing kept up till I headed her for tn
i dock to land fer dinner. N then we ha
9 twelve, fer I KEEP straight count in M
: head, like I alters do An when W
9 landed N went to lif' the box outer tn
n boat, m give 1t a yank fit to raise tn
!. weight oughter been in 1t, nearly fe
over myself. B'gosh! There was Jest on
trout there, m never no sign of no more
That id kid he'd KEEP that one trou
alive all mornin' m drawed In the oil
mans line every time he got good an