12 MEN I HAVE FISHED WITH. 



ever happened to them and have no sort of sympathy 

 for a boy nor his ways; crusty old curmudgeons who 

 never burned their fingers with a firecracker or played 

 hookey from school to go a-fishing. They may be very 

 endurable in a business way, but are of no possible use as 

 fishing companions. I speak by the card, for I've been 

 in the woods with them. 



Reuben Wood was a boy, and was one to me as long 

 as he lived. We were boys together, he being a big boy 

 when I was but a little one; he was at our house a great 

 deal, and is among the earliest of memories. He was 

 "Reub" all through life to all his familiars, and they were 

 many. 



It was a summer day, and I was some six or eight 

 summers old, when Reub came down the street with some 

 fish that he had caught in a stream then the northern 

 boundary of the village, but now in it and fishless. After 

 much solicitation he agreed to let me in the party next 

 day Bruin and me. Now, Bruin was a big Newfound- 

 land dog belonging to my father which Reub had taught 

 to pick me up whenever he said, "Bruin, go fetch Fred," 

 no matter what screams, kicks and protests his burden 

 made, and this was one of Reub's jokes which I failed to 

 appreciate. We started, Bruin and I, in high glee. Reub 

 cut some poles, rigged the lines, floats and hooks and put 

 on the worms, and he soon had a perch, a monster it 

 seemed then and does yet, while the sunfish that tried to 

 run away with my float and which Reub helped to land 

 probably weighed more than the grocer's scales could 

 tell; it must have been as big as 100 modern ones, and 

 Reub said "it was as big as a piece of chalk." Such was 

 my first experience in angling, as clear in memory as if 

 only a week ago. 



A little pond turtle stuck his head up near the float, 



