106 DAYS IN THE OPEN 



We submit that a well-trained Preacheress 

 should spend the summer vacation sitting on the 

 hotel piazza busy with her " tatting." (Don't read 

 that " tattling," please.) But there is at least one 

 of this honoured class who, at certain intervals, 

 abjures fancy work and insists upon going fishing. 

 This aforesaid assistant pastor and her young 

 daughter did, upon a certain day in August, with 

 malice aforethought, sit on the logs at Ive's Mill 

 and most wilfully and maliciously deceive some 

 forty innocent and confiding trout. Then, when 

 the slaughter was done for that afternoon, these 

 two, with the Senior and the Junior, the Judge 

 and two young friends, sat on the grass by the sing- 

 ing brook, just where some great trees cast their 

 shadows, and regaled themselves with the lunch so 

 kindly provided by our hostess. 



One day the Preacher was left to himself. The 

 Judge was away on business, the Preacheress felt 

 no stir of ambition towards piscatorial conquests, 

 and the desolate man was compelled by force of 

 circumstances to go it alone. That was the day 

 when he discovered the unexpected resources of 

 Matheson's Bridge. This bridge spans the stream 

 at the head of Dixon's Pond. It is not a public 

 highway and is used only by the owner of the 

 farm. The water has worn down the bed of the 

 stream until there is a depth of some four feet, 

 and it occurred to the Preacher that here was a 

 likely place for good-sized trout. Warily he ap- 



