8o Sucker Days. 



tie-backed, skittish trout that he lugged 

 over from Sandy Brook in a tin pail and 

 .put into it. Possibly they are up in the 

 bottomless swamp hole now, and weighing 

 a pound or two apiece, but only the minks 

 know about that. 



There was one thing that the brook was 

 good for and that was its suckers. Who 

 ever heard tell of a brook that was good 

 for nothing? In the springtime, when 

 the soft maples were beginning to invite 

 the purple finches, suckers ran up from 

 the mill-pond, and during the day re- 

 mained beneath the large stones in the 

 brook. When school was out for noon 

 recess "us boys" had time to run over to 

 the brook and catch a sucker or two in 

 our hands by feeling for them under the 

 stones and then encircling them in all the 

 death-like grip that was possible in short, 

 chubby fingers. The suckers were not 

 very large ones, but sometimes a half- 

 pounder was caught, and on a day that I 

 want to remember all about, the boy found 

 an "awfully" great big oneway in under a 

 shelving rock. Just as he was getting 



