Concerning Spring Trout fishing 
after that; we simply had to go fishing 
and we went. Everything seemed pro- 
pitious as the train bore us swiftly 
away from the hot, dusty city, and we 
settled back in our parlor car chairs 
with sighs of enjoyment. The small 
boys were out in swarms, Swimming in 
the canal, as~we sped along, and the 
pink and white masses of apple blos- 
soms said as plainly as possible: ‘‘ Sum- 
mer has come, let everybody go fish- 
ing.” Everything was lovely, and we 
smiled sweetly on the parlor car porter, 
and forgot to tip him, we were so full 
of happiness. 
We finally got well up into the wilds 
of Pennsylvania, and as we left the 
station and drove off to Spruce Cabin 
Inn, our host remarked that the fishing 
ead been first rate; but the streams 
now were getting low. It sounded like 
old times, and our spirits began to go 
down, and we sneezed mournfully in 
the clouds of dust that rose around us. 
We felt better, though, when the driver 
cast his weather eye around the ho- 
rizon, and thought ‘‘maybe we would 
get a little rain out of those clouds over 
Bete: ) 
After supper we all sat on the front 
porch and wished for rain. We wished, 
too, because it seemed the correct thing 
to do, and the people there seemed to 
Sxpectif of us. “ididn’t.care for any 
rain myself. I don’t particularly enjoy 
it on a trouting trip, although I can 
take it philosophically along with the 
salt pork and mosquitoes that usually 
go to make up one of these excursions. 
However, the experts all said rain 
would improve the fishing, to say noth- 
ing of the potato crop, so I put my 
personal feelings aside, and wished it 
would rain. 
After it got pretty black overhead 
and the thunder began to mutter in the 
161 
distance, most of the rain makers ad- 
journed to the office and started a 
social game of something they called 
Coyencent ante, although I really 
think it was poker. I was sure that 
such performances, at that time Satur- 
day night, would bring trouble, and it 
did. It brought a howling northeast 
rain storm, and about fifty degrees 
drop in the temperature, which lasted 
during our entire stay. If all those 
rain makers had let things alone, and 
hadn’t tried to tinker with the weather, 
we would, doubtless, had some more 
warm sunshine and good fishing. As 
it was, the whole climatic condition got 
tangled up with all those fellows wish- 
ing for different degrees of rain, that it 
just settled in and rained right along. 
Ofcourse, they tried to ‘switch the 
storm off or side track it, or something, 
but they had got the thing started, and 
they couldn’t stop it. Nature is a big 
thing to fool with, anyway; they ought 
to have left her alone in the first place. 
We made a fishing record at that ho- 
tel. If there had been a prize offered, 
we would have captured it—that isa 
booby prize. My friend brought back 
three trout, the result of three days’ 
labor in the cold and wet. I did not 
bring back one, therefore I am the 
worst fisherman, and hold the record. 
We did catch about a dozen little fel- 
lows one day, but they were numb 
with cold when they came out of the 
stream, and the icy rain that was com- 
ing down finished their misery at once. 
We made a fire to thaw out our frozen 
legs so that we could manage to walk 
home, and roasted the little fish so that 
they got warm at last anyway. 
We related this catch to the circle of 
delicate fishermen who had been sitting 
before a big fire all day in the hotel 
office, playing five cent ante and abus- 
