Vain Glory 



a younger brother must have long since retrieved from 

 the pasture the gentlest and out-milk-giving-est cow 

 extant. Anyway, after waiting this long I might as 

 well make one more cast, for surely Mammy Jane 

 had thrown herself into the first line of Home Defense 

 and had gone to do the milking. Besides, wouldn't 

 that fine string of fish be excuse enough and to spare? 



Fish ability comes only with experience, and ex- 

 perience is a product only of age. All that April 

 afternoon I had been fishing as hard as I could, and 

 I had carefully husbanded my bait, using never more 

 than half a worm at a time. In baiting for this, the 

 last, final throw of the day, I found myself reck- 

 lessly stringing worm after worm on the long blue 

 limerick hook until it resembled a serving of spaghetti. 

 Twice it floated slowly the length of the pool without 

 the semblance of a nibble. Just as I was in the very 

 act of pulling in after the third try, the cork went 

 suddenly and violently out of sight and I struck wildly 

 with my then usual over-my-head movement. The 

 cork barely came to view. A dead weight pull on the 

 hook closely alike to a tree root snag was all the an- 

 swer obtained. Feeling sure in the latter diagnosis, 

 I let the line go slack. It was done in the twinkling 

 of an eye! The tree root idea vanished as quickly as 

 it had come. 



Way off there on the creek, with darkness all but 

 at hand, a thousand thoughts ran through my mind. 



149 



