134 TROUTING ON SUNDAY. 



a mighty flood from the deep and shadowy gulf, rolling in 

 its resistless course great boulders of tons upon tons in weight, 

 and eddying, and twisting, and roaring onward in its furious 

 course towards the lake. In the summer time the drouth 

 lapped up its waters, and it dried away to a little brook, 

 trickling over the falls, and went winding, a small streamlet, 

 around the base of the hill; sometimes it disappeared in 

 the gravel, or among the loose stones, save here and there 

 a pool of narrow limits and shallow depth. It was a fine 

 trout stream at times. Its waters were cold and pure, and 

 the brook trout loved to hide away under the great smooth 

 stones or shelving rocks, and be comfortable in the shade, 

 when the summer sun was hot and fiery in the sky. When 

 the creek was low, they would congregate in the pools and 

 still places, and hi times of extreme drouth, might be seen 

 huddled together in such places in great numbers. 



" My father, though not a member of any church, was strict 

 in his family discipline in regard to the observance of the 

 Sabbath, the breach of which, on the part of his children, 

 was very apt to be followed by consequences not the most 

 pleasant in the world, for he held that a good switch was 

 an essential article of household furniture, and its occasional 

 use a cardinal principle in the philosophy of family rule, 

 One Sunday, when I was some ten or eleven years old, when 

 the old people were gone to meeting (and they had to go 

 eight miles to find a meeting house), I, with an older 

 brother, tired of lying around the house, concluded to take 

 a stroll along up the brook. It was a time of severe drouth, 



