THE AMERICAN WHALEMAN. 105 



into his stupid brain that he was being " sold," and, tired of 

 his position, he drew his legs within his shell with tremen- 

 dous power. I found he had caught me most foully. How 

 he pulled ! I imagined my shoulder-blades must crush un- 

 der the strain, and I cried out with the pain. A life-long stoop 

 was straightened out, but I could not get the brute from my 

 aching back. Sinbad, with his " Old Man of the Sea," had 

 a comparatively good time ; for no old man's knees could 

 squeeze as that fifty-pound terrapin did. And I happen to 

 k'now as much about the strength of an old man's knees as 

 Sinbad did.* I was almost fainting as the men at the camp 

 cut the cords and released me from my bondage. 



* My grandfather was ninety-three when I left home, but still was able 

 to take his end of the cross-cut saw in dividing a three-foot log in the old 

 mill, as well as to canter the friskiest gray three miles to First-day meeting. 

 He was a lover of the gentle art from his youth upward, and retained the 

 inclination, having a wonderful ability for tempting the speckled trout from 

 the musical waters of our wooded hills. But early stiffness in the joints 

 and the twinges of rheumatism forbade his wading our cold brooks. The 

 wiry feather-weight old sportsman therefore converted his mischievous 

 grandson into a pack-horse, to carry him dry-shod from side to side of the 

 shallow streams. The old gentleman's sense of touch was delicate as in 

 youth ; the hand struck surely on the faintest rise at fly, or a nibble at cad- 

 dis. And when he hooked a fish, how tenderly, yet certainly, did the old 

 angler lead the resisting beauty from the deep tangle of the alder-roots to 

 bed of moss prepared for it in the creel ! But the suns of ninety-three sum- 

 mers had somewhat hurt his eyes, and at times he failed to mark the posi- 

 tion of the hook so cautiously dropped from a fern-covered bank. In boy- 

 ish glee the by-standing urchin would shout, "Why, grandfather, thy hook 

 is a foot from the water!" The touchy angler would drop his tip-a-wee, 

 tempt a rise, and land the trout. But the boy had the laugh at the master, 

 and he must pay for his whistle of course. And when we next crossed the 

 rippling shallow, the old bony knees played hard on the wind-organ be- 

 tween them. As good a horseman as the old man was, his grip was too 

 much for the barefooted biped roaming over rolling rocks ; but with a teas- 

 ing tweak of the ear, and a "Dodrabbit thee, thee laughs at my fishing, 

 does thee ?" he put on his best squeeze. The ne*t moment the irate angler 



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