126 ON A GLASS ROOF 



set free, to bore to the core of the world if they 

 chose. I had once laid in a stock of minnows, 

 caught with mutual pains, of which the only good 

 I got in winter was in watching and feeding them, 

 and by June, when I might have used them for 

 bass-bait, such friendly relations had grown up 

 between us that I could not find it in my heart 

 to treat them so cruelly, and so turned them out 

 in the nearest stream for Nature to deal with as 

 she would — let them grow to the utmost of min- 

 nowhood, or feed them to her big fish, or let them 

 be twitched out by the pin-hooks of her boys. It 

 was a tough tender-heartedness, I confess — like 

 turning adrift a kitten one dislikes to kill. 



So winter after winter had come and melted 

 away, adding nothing to my experience, but a little 

 to my knowledge of winter fishing, got verbally 

 from old fishermen, and, with that, strength to my 

 determination that I would some time go. At last 

 the day came, a March day, with a promise of 

 spring in the soft sky that endomed the winter 

 landscape, when I found myself fairly started, well 

 outfitted with an ice-slick for cutting holes, worms 

 for perch, fat pork for smelt and herring, and tackle 

 for all three. 



The air was sharp and frosty, though the sim 

 had got a good hour above the Green Mountains, 

 — white enough now, — and there was a firm 

 crust that would bear, which makes the best of 



