CHAPTER XXV 



PICKEREL FISHING 



I rarely know where the pickerel fishermen 

 come from. They seem to be a race apart and 

 their talk is not of towns or politics, of business 

 or religion. Neither love nor war is their theme, 

 but ice and fishing through it, and what happens 

 to a man while so doing. If I suggest Randolph, 

 or Framingham, Wellesley or Weymouth, they 

 know them, perchance, as places where such and 

 such ponds have a depth that is known to them 

 and ice on which they have had adventures which 

 they can detail. Those things for which the 

 towns stand characterized in the minds of most 

 men are nothing to them, but rather what bait 

 may be found in their streams or what fish may 

 be drawn through the ice in their territory. On 

 days when I talk with them Boston centres about 

 the Quincy Market, where bait is sold and pick- 

 erel are displayed, and the sporting goods stores, 

 the merits of whose tackle are known to a nicety. 

 Thus are worlds multiplied to infinity, each one 



324 



