44 The Autocrat of the Eddy. 



down in his favorite place. If a cow 

 wades into the eddy for a drink he does 

 not care. If a clap of thunder makes the 

 ground tremble, he is only a little bit un- 

 easy ; but there is one sound that puts 

 him on the alert for danger. He does 

 not often hear a fisherman's step, it is 

 true, but he associates a few startling 

 events with that sound. The stony New 

 England soil cannot compete with the 

 fertile Western lands ; the farmers' boys 

 have gone off to the cities, and the few 

 elderly people who remain care a good 

 deal more for 'lection and meetin' than 

 they do for fishing. But sometimes per- 

 sons who were once boys go back to the 

 old homesteads during the hot summer 

 days, and these old boys have not forgot- 

 ten the brook nor the trout that they 

 used to string on a forked willow stick, 

 as slippery as it was yellow. The big 

 trout has not had experience with so very 

 many hooks, but perhaps once a year for 

 the last ten years he has had a misunder- 

 standing with a fisherman, and ten lasting 

 impressions have been made on his memory. 



