My First Pair of Mallards. 



Nothing revives happy episodes of the past more vividly 

 than a visit to one's boyhood home. Yet, although it affords 

 much pleasure to re-visit the old scenes, there is oftentimes 

 a dark side to the bright picture you had stored away in mem- 

 ory. The timber has been cut off the hills, the dear old plum 

 thicket is gone, the venerable walnut trees have been sacrificed 

 for lumber, and the river is not so deep, nor so wide, nor so 

 clear as it used to be. Many of the old schoolmates are sleep- 

 ing in the little village cemetery ; others have moved away ; and 

 saddest of all strangers are living in the dear old homestead 

 where so many happy hours were spent. A visit of this kind, 

 not long ago, carried me back to the morning of my first suc- 

 cess in duck hunting. The scene of this exploit was the "Old 

 Goose Pond," in Eastern Iowa. At that time it was a large 

 body of water and five or six feet deep ; but, when last visited, 

 the water had been drained off and the place where I shot my 

 first mallard was a vast field of waving corn. Standing on the 

 edge of the field, and looking across toward the distant hills, 

 memory filled all that fertile lowland with water, and the pic- 

 ture of a bare-footed boy, with a small single barrel in one 

 hand, as with the other he tremblingly poked aside the rushes 

 and cat-tails, seemed as real as on that eventful morning over 

 thirty-five years ago, when I pulled my first trigger on ducks. 



I was always a great lover of field and stream, and, when 

 a boy, spent all my leisure time roaming the woods or following 

 the winding turns of the old Maquoketa. I was familiar with 

 every nook and cranny of that classic stream. I could point 

 out the dead tree overhanging the shallow riffles, where you 

 were always sure to find a kingfisher sitting, peering down into 

 the water watching for his dinner. The best squirrel trees 

 and fishing holes were known to me, and if I wanted a string 

 of bass, suckers, dace or chubs, I knew where to find them, and 

 the kind of bait and tackle that would take them. Others might 



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