126 ON A GLASS ROOF 



set free, to bore to the core of the world if they 

 chose. I had once laid in a stock of minnows, 

 caught with mutual pains, of which the only good 

 I got in winter was in watching and feeding them, 

 and by June, when I might have used them for 

 bass-bait, such friendly relations had grown up 

 between us that I could not find it in my heart 

 to treat them so cruelly, and so turned them out 

 in the nearest stream for Nature to deal with as 

 she would let them grow to the utmost of min- 

 nowhood, or feed them to her big fish, or let them 

 be twitched out by the pin-hooks of her boys. It 

 was a tough tender-heartedness, I confess like 

 turning adrift a kitten one dislikes to kill. 



So winter after winter had come and melted 

 away, adding nothing to my experience, but a little 

 to my knowledge of winter fishing, got verbally 

 from old fishermen, and, with that, strength to my 

 determination that I would some time go. At last 

 the day came, a March day, with a promise of 

 spring in the soft sky that endomed the winter 

 landscape, when I found myself fairly started, well 

 outfitted with an ice-slick for cutting holes, worms 

 for perch, fat pork for smelt and herring, and tackle 

 for all three. 



The air was sharp and frosty, though the sun 

 had got a good hour above the Green Mountains, 

 white enough now, and there was a firm 

 crust that would bear, which makes the best of 



