Memories of Father. 



before I thought of jerking him out. I called to father and he 

 came and baited my hook again, and showed me how to do my 

 own baiting. Then, instructing me carefully how to hook and 

 land my catch, he went back to his fishing again. I continued 

 feeding them angleworms, and as the feast progressed the fish 

 increased in numbers and size. At last a big one grabbed the 

 bait so greedily that the bent pin got down his throat so far 

 it caught fast and I landed him. 



Father had to release the hook, but that is all I allowed 

 him to do. I cut a willow stringer, placed him on it, and laid 

 him in the edge of the water. 



This was the beginning of an angling comradeship that 

 lasted through the remainder of father's life. 



Many happy days did we spend together on lake and 

 stream. 



I remember, too, the first hunt we enjoyed together when 

 I got old enough to own and carry my own gun. It was a 

 cheap, second-hand single barrel, but to me it was a beauty 

 and I carried it that day with more pride and pleasure than I 

 have ever felt over any gun since. 



It was a beautiful day in autumn that father took me with 

 him on my first squirrel hunt. Game was plentiful in those 

 days, and we had been in the woods but a short time, when a 

 grey flirted his tail at us, and scampered up a large white oak. 

 Father pointed him out to me, away up in a fork ; I took care- 

 ful aim, pulled the trigger, and at the crack of the gun down 

 came my first squirrel. He no sooner struck the ground, then 

 gathering himself together he started up the tree again. Grasp- 

 ing my gun by the barrel, I whacked away at him with the 

 stock. I missed the squirrel, but hit the tree and, of course, 

 broke my gun-stock. 



I had some copper wire in my pocket, with which father 

 wound the broken stock, and I was in shooting trim again. 

 From this accident I learned two valuable lessons first, how 

 to repair a gun-stock in the field ; second, never to use the 



[16] 



