Evening star., 1946-10-30
By Jean McLem ore

Every so often Henry and decide
to do something very wise and very
thrifty, and more often than not It
turns out to be an extravaganza OF
no mean proportion.
The other day Henry's face III
up as he was reading about meat
prices, and should have known by
his crafty expression that he was
about to suggest that we do some
thing thrifty.
LET us fool and foil the meat
packers, Miss Jean, by going flsn-
ing. Not fishing for fun, mind you,
but fishing in dead earnest with the
intent of catching hundreds OF sue
culent sea-going specimens SO that
we can freeze them in the home
freezer and have fish all winter long.
Look at the Chinese, look at the
Eskimos, look at-well, look at all
the peoples of the world who prac-
tically exist on nothing but fish.
Fine, sturdy peoples of the world,
all Of them"
Smacking his lips, he continued:
well hire a fast, sea-going launch,
an old sea dog to run the thing, all
kinds of tackle, then you and Will
fish like fiends, and at the end OF
the day we will have saved maybe
a couple of hundred dollars. now
laugh at meat prices" He laughed
his laugh h-at-meat-prices laugh.
Every day we put this of we're
losing money. Let's be of tomorrow
on the briny. You pack lunch.
Nothing but sandwiches, though.
Well be too busy fishing except to
eat with one hand. Be sure to wrap
each sandwich in separate piece
of waxed paper"
Henry doubled bis Nassau at golf
that afternoon land lost, and I
bought some silver clips on the
strength of all the money we were
going to save. The boat was hired,
sea dog included, and we could
hardly 60 to sleep we were SO excited
about going fishing mot for fun"
The last thing Henry said was for
me to get up before dawn and get
the sandwiches made, and to be
sure to wrap each one in separate
piece of waXed paper.
I assured him that I would be
up in time to give the rising sun a
good stern, contemptuous look in
the eye, and that I felt In fine fish,
ing fettle.
We were headed for the inlet and
the open sea by seven, but the water
was so rough that even some of the
shrimping fleet was coming back SO,
deciding that Falstaf knew his stun
about discretion being the better
part of valor, we turned back to fish
in the quiet river.
I'm Told to Shush.
Right off the reel Henry caught
three trout and I caught a three
inch catfish and my line in an oyster
bed which cut it of, hook, line and
sinker. Henry had to take time out
to redo my pole, and after that
neither of us caught a fish for two
hours. But the live shrimp was used
up! Boy, carloads of them! I
couldn't resist remarking that If
we'd only decided to freeze the
shrimp we'd both I was told to
shush, and, also, that 1t was my
fault that we weren't catching any
fish. I'd broken the spell, it seems,
when I had sportingly tried to catch
a few oysters, just to vaTy our diet,
and had broken my line.
Then out of the sou'west corner OF
his mouth, Henry asked me II I
had wrapped all the sandwiches
separately in waxed paper. told
him that of course I hadn't had
put them all together in the bottom
of the wicker basket and stepped on
them good and hard to be sure they
were packed in nice and tight. He
got strike just then, and lost an
other perfectly good edible shrimp.
BY noon we were worn out. The
three trout were all we had so we
(by we" I mean Henry decided to
call day of it. On the way back
to the dock, my thrifty husband
cleaned the fish. When he finished
there were just parts of fish left
a head here, tail there, fins, scales,
and bones, but no fish.
We had lunch on the porch at
home. I was highly unelated about
the whole venture, but when Henry
unpacked the sandwiches and found
that each one was wrapped sepa-
rately in waxed paper, he beamed
and ate and commended me on that
fact.
I'm still mystified.
distributed by McNaught Syndicate, Inc)