With Rod and Line in Colorado Waters

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France Lewis B.. With Rod and Line in Colorado Waters

MANY YEARS AGO

OVER THE RANGE

FISHERMAN’S LUCK

AGAPAE

BLACK LAKE IN 1878

EGOTISM AND – RODS

TROUBLESOME

METEOROLOGICAL

MULES

MUSIC AND METEOROLOGY

PHILOSOPHY

AN IDLE MORNING AT GRAND LAKE

“CAMPING WITH LADIES” AND – THE BABY

BOYS AND BURROS

“HE’S NO SARDINE.”

UNDER DIFFICULTIES

HIS SERMON

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Forty years ago – a big slice off the long end of one’s life! A broad river with its low-lying south shore heavily timbered and rich in early summer verdure; a long bridge with a multitude of low stone piers and trestle-work at top; in midstream, two miles away, the black hull and tall masts of a man-o’-war, lying idly; between and beyond, the smooth bosom of the blue expanse dotted with fishing sloops under weather-beaten wings, moving lazily hither and yon; to the north, but invisible save a straggling outer edge of tumble-down houses – a possibility then – now, “they tell me,” a magnificent city; a decayed wharf with no signs of life, and draped in tangled sea-weed that came in with the last tide, the jagged and blackened piles stand brooding over the solemn stillness like melancholy sentinels sorrowing over a dead ambition. The ripple of the waves is a melody and the air is fragrant with a brackish sweetness.

It has been a bright day, and the afternoon shadows are beginning to lengthen. They suggest to some another day’s work nearly finished, another week drawing to a close; Saturday night, home and rest. To others they suggest – well, let that pass. To a little fellow, barefoot, coatless and with a ragged straw hat, who crawls out from one of the center piers of the old bridge, these shadows of the closing May day are ominous, yet his forebodings are not unmixed with the rose-hued pleasure of a day well spent. He did think of that river below him, twenty-five feet deep, but that was an attraction. He did think of the very near future and – but no matter; his thoughts were bright enough as he hauled up after him a string of perch as long as his precious body, and as a fit climax to his magnificent catch, an eel at least two and a half feet long and thick as his captor’s arm. What a struggle he had enjoyed with that eel before he got it to the top of the pier. His hand-line was a hopeless snarl; twice he had come within a hair’s-breadth of going overboard, but the unfortunate eel had succumbed to juvenile activity and zeal. What ten-year-old could boast comparison, as with the day’s trophies over his shoulder he plodded his way home? He felt himself an object of interest and envy to his fellows, and told with condescension, not arrogance, his experience with that eel.

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“Why, de chillun, ob cose. Dat Buckingham boy he bantered the chile an’ took his close ober in de skiff, and Mar’s Lou, he done follered, he did, an’ dat ribber a mile wide.”

The animated and confident manner of Jane did not lessen the anxious, even horrified, expression in the brown eyes, but the grey were a study as the owner drew the abashed urchin to him, with the inquiry:

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