Out of the Hurly-Burly Part 13

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Old Collamer, by the way, is singularly unfortunate in his experiences in the sanctuary. He is extremely deaf, and a few Sundays ago he made a fearful blunder during the sermon. The clergyman had occasion to introduce a quotation, and as it was quite long, he brought the volume with him; and when the time came, he picked up the book and began to read from it. We always sing the Old Hundred doxology after sermon at our church, and Mr. Collamer, seeing the pastor with the book, thought the time had come, so while the minister was reading; he opened his hymn-book at the place. Just as the clergyman laid the volume down the man sitting next to Mr. Collamer began to yawn, and Mr. Collamer, thinking he was about to sing, immediately broke out into Old Hundred, and roared it at the top of his voice. As the clergyman was just beginning "secondly," and as there was of course perfect silence in the church, the effect of Mr. Collamer's vociferation was very startling.

But the good old man failed to notice that anything was the matter, so he kept right on and sang the verse through.

When he had finished, he observed that everybody else seemed to be quiet, excepting a few who were laughing, so he leaned over and said out loud to the man who yawned,

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"What's the matter with this congregation, anyhow? Why don't they go home?"

The man turned scarlet, and the perspiration broke out all over him, for he felt that the eyes of the congregation were upon him, and he knew that he would have to yell to make Mr. Collamer hear. So he touched his lips with his fingers as a sign for the old man to keep quiet. But Mr.

Collamer misunderstood the motion:

"Goin' to sing another hymn, hey? All right."

And he began to fumble his hymn-book again. Then the s.e.xton hurried up the aisle, and explained matters out loud to Mr. Collamer, and that gentleman subsided, while the minister proceeded with his discourse. The clergyman has written Mr. Collamer a note requesting him in the future not to join in the sacred harmony. The effect is too appalling upon the ribald boys in the back pews.

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CHAPTER XI.

A FISHING EXCURSION DOWN THE RIVER--DIFFICULTIES OF THE VOYAGE--A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE INCIDENTS--OUR RETURN HOME, AND HOW WE WERE RECEIVED--A LETTER UPON THE GENERAL SUBJECT OF ANGLING--THE SORROWS OF THE FISHERMAN--LIEUTENANT SMILEY--HIS RECOLLECTIONS OF REV. MR. BLODGETT--A VERY REMARKABLE MISSIONARY.

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It is said that there is good fishing in this vicinity. Several of my neighbors who have been out lately have brought home large quant.i.ties of fish of various kinds, together with glowing reports of the delightful character of the sport. A craving to indulge in this form of amus.e.m.e.nt was gradually excited in the mind of Mr. Bob Parker by the stories of the anglers and by the display of their trophies, and he succeeded in persuading me to a.s.sist in the organization of an expedition down the river to the fishing-grounds. Yesterday was selected for the undertaking. I hired a boat from a man at the wharf; and after packing a generous luncheon in the fish-basket and securing a box full of bait, we tossed our lines into the boat, together with a heavy stone which was to serve as an anchor, and then we pushed out into the stream.

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It was early morning when we started, and to my dismay I found that the tide was running up with remarkable velocity. As we had to pull four miles down the river, this was a consideration of very great importance.

Mr. Parker is not an especially skillful oarsman, and before he had fairly seated himself and dipped his blade in the water we had drifted two hundred yards in the wrong direction. After very severe labor for half an hour, we succeeded in getting three-quarters of a mile below the town, and then Bob informed me that he thought he could row better with my oar. Accordingly, I changed places with him, and during the time thus expended the boat went back a third of the distance we had gained.

Another prolonged and terrible effort enabled us to proceed two miles toward our destination, and then Parker observed that he must stop and rest; he said he would die if he rowed another stroke. So we lay upon our oars for a while, and embraced the opportunity to wipe away the perspiration and to cool our blistered hands in the river. Parker then asked me if I would mind changing places with him again. He said he was now convinced that he had made a mistake in leaving his first position.

We fell back half a mile during this period; and when we finally reached the grounds, the morning was far advanced. Bob was nearly worn out, and he proposed that we give up the idea of catching fish and row ash.o.r.e, where we could lie down under the trees and begin operations upon the luncheon.

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But as we had come to fish, I was determined to do so. I informed Bob that I should be ashamed to go home without bringing any game. I should be afraid to look in the face of the man who owned the boat when he asked me what luck I had. So we tied a rope around the stone, and tossing the stone overboard, we came to anchor. Our hooks were baited and the lines were thrown out, and then Bob and I waited patiently for bites.

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It required a great deal of patience, for the fish did not take the bait with a remarkable degree of freedom. In fact, we only had a nibble or two at first, and then even this manifestation of the presence of the fish ceased. We were sitting with our backs to the sh.o.r.e, watching the corks in front of us, when Bob suddenly uttered an exclamation. Upon looking around, I found that we had drifted half a mile up stream and out into the middle of the river, which is here nearly four miles wide.

The stone had dropped from the knot in the rope and released the boat.

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Then we rowed back to sh.o.r.e and landed for the purpose of obtaining another stone. We could not find one, so we pulled out again; and sticking one of the oars in the mud, we fastened the boat to that. Then Bob had a bite. He pulled up, and dragged to the surface of the water a crab, which instantly let go and sidled under the boat. Then we each caught a small sunfish, and with this our enthusiasm began to revive.

Just then the oar came out of the mud, slipped through the loop in the cable and floated off. The prospect of having to take the boat home with one oar seemed so appalling that I hastily threw off my coat and shoes and swam after the fugitive oar. Meantime, the boat floated off, and I reached it and was hauled in by Bob just as I had made up my mind to give up and go to the bottom.

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We then fastened the oar down again, and I held it with one hand and my fishing-line with the other. Suddenly each of us had a splendid bite, and we both pulled in vigorously. The fish seemed to struggle violently all the way to the surface; but when the hooks came into view, we found that our lines were entangled, and that neither of us had a fish. The next time Bob attempted to take in his line his hook caught upon the bottom; and when, in a fit of exasperation, he tried to jerk it loose, the cord snapped and the hopes of the fisherman were blasted for that day. Then, as Bob tipped the boat while he washed his hands, the bait-box fell overboard, and so matters came to a definite conclusion, and we determined to quit.

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When we started for home, the tide had turned, and we did not reach town until dark. The man who owned the craft had just telegraphed to Delaware City for the purpose of ascertaining if two suspicious men had landed there and attempted to sell a boat. He compelled me to pay half a day's hire extra for staying out so late, together with the cost of the telegram.

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I consider it beneath me to notice the unnecessary violence of his language or the insolence of his criticisms upon our skill as fishermen.

This I could have borne with patience, but it was hard, very, very hard, upon arriving home, to have Mrs. Adeler come to the door with a smile upon her face and ask, "Where are the fish?" while she informed us that she had asked the Magruders over to tea, and had depended upon us to supply the princ.i.p.al dish, so that now she had not a thing in the house that she could cook.

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"Mrs. Adeler, we return with two diminutive sunfish, one demoralized ham-sandwich, two crimson noses and a thorough, sincere, whole-souled and earnest disgust for the wretched business which some men choose to regard in the light of amus.e.m.e.nt, No, Mrs. Adeler, we have no fish that are worthy of the name, and hereafter when we wish to have some, we will purchase them from the unhappy beings who catch them. A fisherman deserves all the money he can get, my dear. I wouldn't be a professional piscator for the mines of Golconda and the wealth of a nabob to boot."

Our unfortunate experiences upon the river tempt me to refer in detail to the ills to which amateur fishermen, as a cla.s.s, are exposed. The pleasures of angling have been said and sung by a vast mult.i.tude of sentimental people reaching all the way from old Izaak Walton to Mr.

Prime; but the story of the suffering that too often accompanies the sport has not yet been narrated with a sufficient amount of vigor. The martyr fishermen have been too long kept in the background. The time has come for them to have a hearing. I have chosen to present their complaint in the somewhat singular form of a letter to Mr. Benjamin F.

Butler, because at the time of the negotiation of the Washington treaty he manifested much indignation at the wrongs heaped upon American fishermen by that instrument, and because he is a very suitable person to figure in a remonstrance which has about it perhaps a slight flavor of burlesque, even though it is a narrative of real misery.

THE SORROWS OF THE FISHERMAN.

DEAR GENERAL: I have given a great deal of reflection, lately, to the fishery question, and I am convinced that your opposition to the fishery clauses of the Washington treaty had a basis of sound common sense. The treaty, in my opinion, wholly fails to consider in a spirit of wise statesmanship the causes which move the fisherman to complaint, and supplies no adequate means for securing their removal. Permit me to suggest to you the propriety of urging upon the government the rea.s.sembling of the joint high commission for the purpose of obtaining a reconsideration of the fishery question with the new light which I propose to shed upon it.

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My experience in fishing has convinced me that one of the most serious of the primary obstacles to be overcome is the difficulty of procuring worms. Perhaps you may have observed an enthusiastic fisherman in pursuit of worms? The day is always warm, and his performance upon the shovel conduces to profuse perspiration. He seems never to strike precisely the spot where the worms frolic. He labors with tremendous energy until he has excavated a couple of cellars and a rifle-pit, from which he rescues but two or three worms, while all around him the earth is perforated with holes, into which other vermicular creatures are perceived to disappear before he can lay his hands on them. The alacrity with which a worm draws himself into a hole in the ground, and dives down apparently to the centre of the globe, when you want him, is a constant source of aggravation to the fisherman. The fishery interests suffer on account of it.

If a joint high commission would address itself in a conciliatory spirit to the work of obtaining concerted action from the civilized nations of the world upon the subject of the reformation of worms, blessed results would undoubtedly accrue. I know a fisherman who could make a speech in Congress on the subject of worms which would make that body weep the rotunda full of tears.

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And even when bait has been secured, you are aware, perhaps, that the fisherman will sit for hours upon the bank of the stream watching his cork until he is nearly blinded, and until his head swims. At last, when his patience is exhausted and he is convinced that there are no fish about, he pulls up for the purpose of trying another spot, and finds that some disreputable fish has sucked the bait off the hook an hour before without making a perceptible nibble.