Crowded Out o' Crofield; or, The Boy who made his Way by William O. Stoddard (top novels txt) 📖

turned back to watch his line.

"I guess I'll try down stream," said Jack. "Nobody ever caught anything down there, and nobody ever goes there, but I s'pose I might as well try it, just for once."

He turned away along the track over which he had come. He did not pause at the road and bridge, but went on down the further bank of the Cocahutchie. It was a pretty stream of water, and it spread out wide and shallow, and rippled merrily among stones and bowlders and clumps of willow and alder for nearly half a mile. Gradually, then, it grew narrower, quieter, deeper, and wore a sleepy look which made it seem more in keeping with quiet old Crofield.

"The hay's about ready to cut," said Jack, as he plodded along the path, near the water's edge, through a thriving meadow of clover and timothy. "There's always plenty of work in haying time. Hullo! What grasshoppers! Jingo!"

As he made the last exclamation, he clapped his hand upon his trousers pocket.

"If I didn't forget to go in and get my sinker! Never did such a thing before in all my life. What's the use of trying to fish without a sinker?"

The luck seemed to be going directly against him. Even the Cocahutchie, at his left, had dwindled to a mere crack between bushes and high grass, as if to show that it had no room to let for fish to live in—that is, for fish accustomed to having plenty of room, such as they could find when living in a mill-pond, lined around the edges with boys and fish-poles.

"That's a whopper!" suddenly exclaimed Jack, with a quick snatch at something that alighted upon his left arm. "I've caught him! Grasshoppers are the best kind of bait, too. I'll try him on, sinker or no sinker. Hope there are some fish, down here."

The line he unwound from his rod was somewhat coarse, but it was strong, and so was his hook, as if the fishing around Crofield called for stout tackle as well as for a large number of sportsmen. The big, long-limbed, green-coated jumper was placed in position on the hook, and then, with several more grumbling regrets over the absence of any sinker, Jack searched along the bank for a place whence he could throw his bait into the water.

"This'll do," he said, at last, and the breeze helped him to swing out his line until the grasshopper at the end of it dropped lightly and naturally into a dark little eddy, almost across that narrow ribbon of the Cocahutchie.

Splash—tug—splash again—

"Jingo! What's that? I declare—if he isn't pulling! He'll break the line—no, he won't. See that pole bend! Steady—here he comes. Hurrah!"

Out he came, indeed, for the rude, strong tackle held, even against the game struggling of that vigorous trout. There he lay now, on the grass, with Jack Ogden bending over him in a fever of exultation and amazement.

"I never could have caught him with a worm and a sinker," he said, aloud. "This is the way to catch 'em. Isn't he a big fellow! I'll try some more grasshoppers."

There was not likely to be another two-pound brook-trout very near the hole out of which that one had been pulled. There would not have been any at all, perhaps, but for the prevailing superstition that there were no fish there. Everybody knew that there were bullheads, suckers, perch, and "pumpkin-seeds" in the mill-pond, and eels, with now and then a pickerel, but the trout were a profound secret. It was easy to catch another big grasshopper, but the young sportsman knew very well that he knew nothing at all of that kind of fishing. He had made his first cast perfectly, because it was about the only way in which it could have been made, and now he was so very nervous and excited and cautious that he did very well again, aided as before by the breeze. Not in the same place, but at a little distance down, and close to where Jack captured his second bait, there was a crook in the Cocahutchie, with a steep, overhanging, bushy bank. Into the glassy shadow under that bank the sinkerless line carried and dropped its little green prisoner, and there was a hungry fellow in there, waiting for foolish grasshoppers in the meadow to spring too far and come down upon the water instead of upon the grass. As the grasshopper alighted on the water, there was a rush, a plunge, a strong hard pull, and then Jack Ogden said to himself:

"I've heard how they do it. They wait and tire 'em out. I won't be in too much of a hurry. He'll get away if I am."

That is probably what the fish would have done, for he was a fish with what army men call "tactics." He was able to pull very hard, and he was also wise enough to rush in under the bank and to sulkily stay there.

"Feels as if I'd hooked a snag," said Jack. "May be I've lost the fish and he's hitched me into a 'cod-lamper' eel of some kind. Steady—no, I mustn't pull harder than the fish."

He was breathless, but not with any exertion that he was making. His hat fell off upon the grass, as he leaned forward through the alder bushes, and his sandy hair was tangled for a moment in some stubby twigs. He loosened his head, still holding firmly his bent and straining rod. One step farther, a slip of his left foot, an unsuccessful grasp at a bush, and then Jack went over and down into a pool deeper than he had thought the Cocahutchie afforded so near Crofield.

There was a very fine splash, as the grasshopper fly-fisherman went under, and there was a coughing and spluttering a moment afterward, when his eager, excited, anxious face came up again. He could swim extremely well, and he was not thinking of his ducking—only of his game.

"I hope I haven't lost him!" he exclaimed, as he tried to pull upon the line.

It did not tug at all, just then, for the fish on the hook had been rudely startled out from under the bank and was on his way up the Cocahutchie, with the hook in his mouth.

"There' he is! I've got him yet! Glad I can swim—" cried Jack; and it did seem as if he and this fish were very well matched, except that Jack had to give one of his hands to the rod while his captive could use every fin.

Down stream floated Jack, passing the rod back through his hands until he could grasp the line, and all the while the fish was darting madly about to get away.

"There, I've touched bottom. Now for him! Here he comes. I'll draw him ashore easy—that's it! Hurrah! biggest fish ever was caught in the Cocahutchie!"

That might or might not be so, but Jack Ogden had a three-pound trout, flopping angrily upon the grass at his feet.

"I know how to do it now," he almost shouted. "I can catch 'em! I won't let anybody else know how it's done, either."

He had learned something, no doubt, but he had not learned how to make a large fish out of a small one. All the rest of that afternoon he caught grasshoppers and cast them daintily into what seemed to be good places, but he did not have another occasion to tumble in. When at last he was tired out and decided to go home, he had a dozen more of trout, not one of them weighing over six ounces, with a pair of very good yellow perch, one very large perch, a sucker, and three bullheads, that bit when his bait happened to sink to the bottom without any lead to help it. Take it all in all, it was a great string of fish to be caught on a Saturday afternoon, when all that the Crofield sportsmen around the mill-pond could show was six bullheads, a dozen small perch, a lot of "pumpkin-seeds" not much larger than dollars, five small eels, and a very vicious snapping-turtle.

Jack stood for a moment looking down at the results of his experiment in fly-fishing. He felt, really, as if he could not more than half believe it.

"Fishing doesn't pay," he said. "It doesn't pay cash, any way. There isn't anything around Crofield that does pay. Well, it must be time for me to go home."

CHAPTER III. I AM ONLY A GIRL.

Jack was dry enough, but anybody could see that he had had a ducking, when he marched down the main street. He was carrying his prizes in two strings, one in each hand, and he was looking and feeling taller than he ever felt before. It was just the right hour to meet people, and he had to answer curious questions from some women, and from twice as many men, and from three times as many boys, all the way from above the green, where he came out into the street, down to the front of the Washington Hotel.

"Yes; I caught 'em all in the Cocahutchie."

He had had to say that any number of times, and he had also explained, apparently without trying to conceal anything:

"I had to swim for 'em. Caught 'em all under water. Those big speckled fellows are trout. They pulled me clean under. All that kind of fish live under water." And he told half a dozen inquiring boys: "I've found the best fish-hole you ever saw. Deep water all 'round it. I'm going there again." And then every one asked: "Take me with you, Jack?"

He had to come to a halt at the tavern, for every man in the arm-chairs on the piazza brought his feet down from the railing.

"Hold on! I want to look at those fish!" shouted old Livermore, the landlord. "Where'd you catch 'em?"

"Down the Cocahutchie," said Jack once more. "I caught 'em under water."

"Those are just what I'm looking for," replied Livermore, rubbing his sides, while nearly a dozen men crowded around to admire, and to guess at the weights.

"Traout's a-sellin' at a dollar a paound, over to Mertonville," squealed old Deacon Hawkins; "and traout o' that size is wuth more'n small traout. Don't ye let old Livermore cheat ye, Jack."

"I won't cheat him, Deacon," said the big landlord. "I don't want any thing but the trout. There's a Sunday crowd coming over from Mertonville, to-morrer, to hear Elder Holloway. I'll give ye two dollars, Jack."

"That's enough for one fish," said Jack. "Don't you want the big one? I had to dive for him. He'll weigh more'n three pounds."

"No, he won't!" said the landlord, becoming more and more eager. "Say three dollars for the lot."

"I daon't know but what I want some o' them traout myself," began Deacon Hawkins, peering more closely at the largest prize. "It's hard times,—and a dollar a paound. I've got some folks comin' and Elder Holloway's to be at my haouse. I don't know but I oughter—"

"I'll take 'em, Jack," interrupted the landlord, testily. "I spoke first. Three pounds, and two is five pounds, and—"

"I'll give another dollar for the small traout," exclaimed Deacon Hawkins. "He can't have 'em all."

The landlord might have hesitated even then, but the excitement was catching, and Squire Jones was actually, but slowly, taking out his pocket-book.

"Five! There's your five, Jack. The big fish are mine. Take your money. Fetch 'em in," broke out old Livermore.

"There's my dollar,—and there's my traout,—" squealed the deacon.

"I was just a-goin' to saay—" at that moment growled the deep, heavy bass voice of Squire Jones.

"Too late," said the landlord. "He's taken my money. Come in, Jack. Come in and get yours, Deacon," and Jack walked on into the Washington House with six dollars in his hand, just as a boy he knew stuck his head under Squire Jones's arm and shouted:

"Jack!—Jack! Why didn't yer put 'em up at auction?"

It took but a minute to get rid of the very fine fish he had sold, and then the uncommonly successful angler made his way out of the Washington Hotel through the side door.

"I don't intend to answer any more questions," he said to himself; "and all that crowd is out there yet."

There was another reason that he did not give, for