REUBEN WOOD. 15 



the Onondaga Fishing Club, of Syracuse, which was al- 

 ways represented at the State Sportsmen's tournaments. 

 Take a good look at him! That kind, honest face would 

 be a passport anywhere. To me he was always the same 

 lovable boy to whom I looked up as guide, philosopher 

 and friend on my first fishing trip away back in the forties. 

 I think I am a better man for knowing Reub Wood when 

 he was a big boy and I a child. From him I learned that 

 the world was round "rounder than a marble," he said 

 and I saw that the sky was the upper half and that we 

 were inside the world; if he knew better he never ex- 

 plained the matter. 



Reuben's humor was manifested in the use of strange 

 words, which he probably manufactured, as I never heard 

 them from any other person. A bad knot in a fish line 

 was a "wrinkle-hawk," an excellent thing was "just exe- 

 bogenus," a big fish was "an old codwalloper," and a 

 long-stemmed pipe was "a flugemocker." What a blank 

 page is a boy's memory that such things written on it 

 remain indelible for over half a century when more im- 

 portant ones have faded! The name of Reub Wood con- 

 jures up these trifling things, which, if heard ten years 

 ago, would have been forgotten. But he had such a 

 strong individuality that a person who only met him for 

 ten minutes would be impressed by it, and would know 

 him in after years ; what wonder that he should carve his 

 personality on the mind of a child? Impressions of other 

 men and boys in that small village are also quite distinct, 

 and, as is usual in such places, there is more profanity 

 and obscenity heard by a boy than in cities, for the tough 

 boy in small places excels in such things, and it seems 

 to me that he was worse then than now. But the worst 

 that I ever heard Reub say was "Gosh hang it," under the 

 provocation of having to cut a fish hook out of his thumb. 



