was the last of the chain on our home brook. In contained no fish large enough to attract attention save trout and, of course, the eel. How I hated the squirming thing when he had poked my hookprobably my only one. Good fish were in the pond, but it was little fished, having few good, accessible "holes" as compared with other ponds. The chief amusement which I got from it was in watching the muskrats as they came and went to and from their home in the bank near the dam. When their cold-weather coat was on they were in danger from grown-up boys, to whom the New England "twoand-threepence," which they hoped to get from the skin, was a great inducement to slaughter. Many of the skins, stretched upon hoops made from stout twigs, adorned the country store and diffused their musky odor around.

The shallow ford below the dam was the boys' playing place. Below this the trout again had exclusive occupancy, save when the smelts came up or during the

spring run of alewives. The smelt nets destroyed many a big trout, and I have had there the odd experience of bringing home from a spring day's fishing, herring and trout in the same creel. Down this stretch of brook, Uncle David took me for my first experience in trout fishing. With eager expectations I ran beside him across the lot to the place he had selected, and knelt with him behind the alders while he showed me how to bait the worm. Almost immediately I had a trout; presently another. But with this one I learned the restraints of the art. It was small, not more than seven inches long, and I was told "to put it back to grow." It seemed to me like "flying in the face of Providence," but I was rewarded by being allowed to keep the third. "That is enough for to-day," from David, closed the lesson.

Soon he took me farther a-field, whenever business or sport, or both combined, might take him. The prime object might be something to partly satisfy a bad debt, but the rod and creel, or the gun and

place, whence, by the same strenuous method I extracted the mate of my first

And the hills, in righteousness.

In them long ago was done such a real work of Christianizing, by love and not by gunpowder, that white and red men ever were friends. That kindly spirit still lingered there in later days. On one of these hills dwelt my great-grandfather, who never allowed his door to be fastened at night, “for fear that some poor creature might come in the night and not be able to get in."

By whatever way one might come out of these hills he could hardly miss following a brook: brooks that babbled through stony places, whose yellow-bellied trout darted over sandy rapids; brooks that slipped quietly through swamps giving the fish a weight ill bought at the price of their dark skin; brooks that wound their way through bowlders and tree-trunks or moved with dignity as they widened into estuaries; brooks which half lost themselves as they went down the beach to meet the tide, and brooks which fell down the steep into the embrace of the breakers.

To all these, Uncle David took me, rod in hand, at the risk of spoiling his own sport, diligently explaining the secrets of the craft. Perhaps one brook will always take precedence for what right-minded boy can forget his first big trout? There were three of us together. The third, a big young man, had endeared himself to me for all time by asking Uncle David, in my hearing, “Why he wanted to take boys along?" But he did not spoil my sport, for at the first halt David straightway placed me at a convenient break in the bushes where the water fell between two smooth bowlders into a little pool where he thought me likely to find “a good one." Giving me instructions he moved toward his own place. At once I was struggling with "a good one," indeed. The contest became a question of strength, for the tackle was equal to the emergency, and presently a good trout of three-quarters of a pound flew over my head into the meadow behind me. Laughing and shouting to quiet my excitement lest I should spoil my own sport, David ran to

Without his guidance my success was different, and I presently gave my attention to the charms of the meadow, quite content that I saw in the creels no other fish that matched my own pair.

In all my fishing my success was a source of almost paternal pleasure to my teacher. I have since fished with sportsmen whose eagerness outran their courtesy, and who could not conceal their envy of the success of others, even their own guests. Once only I feared from a passing look of seriousness on the face of Uncle David, when he saw my string, that I had been wanting in consideration of him, but he gave no word of rebuke or envy. After my grandmother's death, when I was, perhaps, a dozen years old, I was visiting Uncle David in the old village.

One day when he was busy about some matters which did not interest me, for want of occupation I wandered down to the brook, up the pleasant lane to the mill, and along the dam to a wasteway, a favorite idling place of mine. Sitting beside the little pool, into which the over-flow fell, I noticed a number of good-sized fish in it in plain sight. Doubtless, they were shotten herring, but to my eager and inexperienced eyes they could be only trout. To run home for the canerod, which stood with stout tackle already upon it, and to dig a few worms took but a little while. Had the fish I had seen really been trout my precipitancy and my want of concealment would have surely defeated my purpose. But fortune favored me. Into the water, upon the near side of the pool had fallen a number of boards, making a sort of sunken roof. Beyond this, and toward the fish in the middle of the pool, I threw my bait. stantly, from beneath the boards dashed a good trout, and took it. He was presently upon the bank, and within, perhaps, as many minutes there lay together seven fish, averaging not less than half-a-pound. By this time my nerves were a little unsteady, and when the patriarch of the pool, a pound fish, seized the bait, in my excitement I tore it away from his mouth

In

It

who waits for the flight of the birds. is the recognition of these things which distinguishes the sportsman from the pothunter or fisher. The distinction goes far back. It must have been in the mind of that Indian who named the great northern river Asawâbimoswân, "Where the hunters watch for the moose." No "Moose River," no river name commemorative of slaughter touches the same chord as that. In our immediate region was no furred game worthy of the sportsman, and little of our feathered game was permanently with us. Only poachers killed the heath hen, save on those rare days voted open for resident shooters only. Few knew the haunts of the woodcock. But when the season brought the flight birds, sport was fine. Tradition said that the plover would keep tryst with us on September 1st. In the late August days, therefore, guns and ammunition were made ready, and decoys put in order. Although I was too little to handle a gun, I was taken because I was docile, and would lie as close as a well-broken dog all day long in the "stand" (a rudimentary blind of a fence-rail or two, or a few small bowlders, among which I could cuddle down) and never spoil a shot. Commonly our station was in the rolling hills between large waters, sometimes by the margins of the waters themselves when there was a chance at curlew, pill-pill, or yellow-legs.

I cannot deny that I enjoyed the success of David's gun, or that I desired his score to be better than his neighbor's. I liked to run for the birds as they fell, and to share in their eating afterward. But the memories that remain are of the broad sky above, its blue streaked with mare's tails; the close-cropped grass, brown from the summer's heat; the ceaseless circling flight of the birds, swerving suddenly at the sound of the sportsman's call; the fatal moment of poise over the decoys; the lapping of the nearer water in the sedges, and the boom of the sea farther away. Now and then a less contemplative recollection comes. There is the old sorrel, restless from too long watching the gun-flashes, venting her nerves upon the orchard fence to which she has been tied; the noon-day wading, hip deep with gun and garments held high aloft, as we changed from the shooting ground in the

hills to one in the lowland; and, I believe that the name of curlew will always recall the figure of old Mr. L———. As we came upon him he stood, his lean frame in oldfashioned swallow-tailed coat, his head covered with a bell-crowned beaver— the very picture of Uncle Sam himself— speechless and trembling with excitement. While watching for curlew and their like he saw a good bunch of teal go by. Eagerly he had rammed a charge into his long-barrelled, converted king's arm, and then had fired all, ramrod included, at the teal. No ramrod which any of our party could offer was long enough by a foot, and the old man was helpless in the midst of abundant game. And then the ride home, the lengthening shadows bluing the recesses, while the hill-tops glowed in the yellow light, the cows standing around the milking-pens, and lamps lighting in the homes.

After these birds had all gone southward came the ducks and the geese. Shooting them gave no long pleasant days on the hill-side. The best opportunities came with the movement of the game in the dawn, and at closing day. It was pleasant to watch the sunset, but when the sun had gone the air grew suddenly chilly. I recall the solicitude of Uncle David and a fellow-sportsman, who had lingered into the twilight in hopes of a shot, lest the boy had been chilled by the exposure. What signs of harm I showed I cannot guess, but old "Rosy" was pulled up beside the half-hogshead watering-trough, some of the sweet spring water caught in the leathern drinking-cup, and a dose of brandy, suitable to my tender years, administered

to me.

Then I was slid under the buffalo robe for protection, and did not wake until I was taken out at my grandmother's door.

I cannot but wonder at the devotion which made David ever ready to take a boy on his sporting excursions at any cost of trouble to himself. I remember opening my eyes one morning to find him standing beside my bed with a lamp in one hand, while the other aroused me with a shaking. Half awake, I quickly accepted his invitation to go with him to the beach for a chance at a goose or a duck. He set down his lamp and helped me to dress, doubtless fearing the over