THE BROCKWAY BOYS. 93 



est "boy," haw-hawed out loud; he simply watched the 

 curious performance. Cast after cast was made, when a 

 garfish took the lure and was landed a strange fish to 

 me, but no stranger to the others, who with one accord 

 voted him "no good." They had all stopped to watch 

 this way of fishing, which now was proved capable of tak- 

 ing a gar at least, but when a pickerel of about eighteen 

 inches long came in it was my moment of triumph. If 

 this (to them) crazy mode of fishing had not been a suc- 

 cess that morning ridicule would have been my portion. 

 I had known that from the remarks at the beginning, so, 

 turning around, I said : "Yes, Jim, we often catch bigger 

 fish than that when we go a-fishin' about Albany;" and 

 William, who had said nothing, borrowed a hook on gimp 

 and arranged to skitter, while Martin and Jim went catch- 

 ing minnows for the same purpose. When you beat a 

 man or boy at a game he thinks peculiarly his own, he 

 suddenly develops a respect for your abilities perhaps 

 beyond their real deserts. 



William and others took some good fish by skittering, 

 and altogether we had a fine lot, something like two hun- 

 dred pounds of fish, many strange kinds to me, including 

 pickerel (pike, we call them now), suckers, a strange 

 green sunfish, a strange catfish, as well as the familiar 

 bullhead and the common yellow perch. There was also 

 a "dogfish," strange in that day, and, stranger still, this 

 last-named fish and the gars were said to be uneatable. I 

 had supposed that all fresh-water fishes were eatable, even 

 the suckers in winter, only, like the beer story, "some's 

 better 'n others." We were all learning. When the 

 whole catch was collected it was divided into as many 

 parts as there were houses to be passed on the road home, 

 some fifteen or twenty, and strings arranged to be left at 

 each, with a special one containing choice kinds for a 



