122 MEN 1 HAVE FISHED WITH. 



go home. The General owned up and persuaded him to 

 lie down, and the next we knew the night had gone. 



We had eels enough for breakfast on the first line, 

 and then Port took up the others and left us. We 

 fished until near noon, when the fish took a rest, and we 

 gathered at the barn, each with several strings of perch, 

 bullheads and rock bass. John Atwood had a strange 

 fish, one that none of the party had ever seen before. 

 We learned that it was a black bass, a Western fish that 

 had come into the Hudson by way of the Erie Canal, so 

 Harleigh said, and he was the village authority on fish 

 and fishing. Just why the bass have not become more 

 plenty in the upper river is a problem. Down about 

 Newburgh, where the water is often somewhat brackish, 

 they seem to be more plentiful. A little more fishing in 

 the afternoon, and we went home after sundown. The 

 General declared it was a pleasant trip, but I never knew 

 him to fish before or after this once. 



Back of Ruyter & Van Valkenburg's tannery there 

 was a great heap of spent tanbark to tumble in, and 

 Jimmy Brown and I practised somersaults there; the 

 other boys merely jumped. This interested the General, 

 and he would help us in a whirl with his strong arm, 

 which landed us on our feet. This was a special help in 

 the back flop. Poor Jimmy Brown! We used to play 

 the banjo for each other's jigs on the sanded floor until 

 he was burned up on the steamer Reindeer in the sum- 

 mer of 1850. General Miller also taught us to wrestle 

 in the "collar-and-elbow" and "square hold" styles, and 

 always impressed his correction of a fault upon us by 

 taking hold himself and making the faulty one put his 

 foot or his weight in the wrong position and then quickly 

 laid him on his back. There were many fair wrestlers 

 then among the boys of Greenbush. 



