14 MEN I HAVE FISHED WITH. 



as a boy, he ever indulged hi forays on the fruit and melon 

 patches of the farmers, the fact is unknown to me. That 

 I did is certain, but the disparity of years forbade com- 

 radeship in such nocturnal pleasures. He was large, 

 strong and heavy of movement, with a deep chest voice, 

 even when a boy, that was remarkable. His brother Ira, 

 nearer my age, resembled him in this and other particu- 

 lars, and in both there was an air of honesty and truthful- 

 ness, not so frequent in boys, which was fully borne out in 

 their characters as men. 



In after years I had a joke on Reub which was orig- 

 inally on me as a boy, but later knowledge reversed it. 

 With some other boys I had been fishing away up the hill 

 in the pond of the locally famous "red mill," and had seen 

 a pair of wood ducks alight upon a tree. We somehow 

 knew that they were wild ducks, but had no idea that the 

 term included more than one kind, for at that day we only 

 knew one sort of tame ducks. To see a duck alight on 

 a tree was strange, and I told Reub of it; and he spread 

 the incredible story, for he knew nothing of wood ducks, 

 and the laugh was on me. "Seen any ducks lightin' on 

 trees lately?" was a common and annoying salutation, and 

 years later the question was turned on Reub. I fished 

 with him many times as a boy, never after he left Green- 

 bush for Syracuse, in 1852; but we met occasionally after 

 1876, when thrown together at fairs and fly-casting tour- 

 naments, and he seemed to be the same boy that somehow 

 had gray hair. 



The picture of him gives an excellent idea of his manly 

 face, but the cigar I do not recognize. This is not re- 

 markable, because he used from a dozen to twenty each 

 day, and there are people who might not recognize his 

 picture without a cigar of some kind. The badge upon 

 his corduroy coat is a certificate that he is a member of 



