SCO WINTER. 



must have been the best tommy-cod fisherwoman in the 

 world. 



If a cynical angler remarks, " But what art is there in 

 catching fish through a little hole in the ice with a yard 

 of string, a hook baited with fish, and 6 inches of stick 

 as a handle?" I might reply by asserting that, witli 

 similar apparatus and a fair start, that woman will catch 

 four tommies to his one ; for so skilled was that female 

 angler, that she never drove the hook any harder into a 

 fish's mouth than was just necessary to lift him gently 

 out of the water and deposit him on the ice, where, after 

 a few wriggles, he was frozen stiff. Surely that female 

 had a light and sure hand on a tommy-cod ! 



She had a basket full when I came. They all had 

 baskets full, but the ice round the old lady's stool was, as 

 I said before, strewed with fish. The governor sat on a 

 trebogen, brought there no doubt to haul home the fish ; 

 the children sat on lumps of ice. My small friend had, I 

 think, been getting a scolding for neglecting his business 

 I imagine so from his behaviour when I took six 

 tommy-cods out of his basket, and gave him in return the 

 large sum of sixpence. He stood up the easier to deposit 

 the coin in his trousers' pocket, and gave a triumphant 

 look at mamma (who had narrowly watched this little 

 mercantile transaction), as much as to say, " You can 

 catch 'em, but I am the boy to sell them." 



On my remarking to the governor that the fish seemed 

 very plentiful, he replied that they had not commenced 

 to bite well yet; that the water was not cold enough. 

 " Well," thought I, " fond as I am of ' casting angles into 



