The Poisoned Pool 



the glory of a " sure nuff " fisherman rested upon me. 



The stream where I was permitted to fish with a 

 brother a year or so older than myself at an unusually 

 early age was a small one that flowed quietly through 

 rich meadow lands, and was lined with willow bushes 

 and overhung here and there by tall sycamore trees. 

 It contained minnows, chubs, a larger fish which we, 

 for want of a better name, called horny heads, and 

 suckers, the last being the prize fish of the stream. 

 While we kept everything we caught, from minnows 

 up, as a sort of by-product of our little fishing trips, 

 we always fished for suckers; and to catch one of 

 these seven or eight inches long was to give me a 

 greater thrill than I have ever felt in catching larger 

 and gamier fish in later years. 



Our little fishing excursions rarely ever took us out 

 of sight of home, but as we grew older we became 

 ambitious to venture far afield. In a stream much 

 larger than our own, about two and a half miles dis- 

 tant, there was a certain pool noted as a " good sucker 

 hole " which we desired to fish, but our mother at 

 first would not entertain the idea of our straying so 

 far from home. Finally, however, as customary with 

 all good mothers, she consented, and so one bright 

 morning in the latter part of March we started off 

 on our hopeful journey to the pool. 



But on arriving at the stream we found to our 

 chagrin that two men there ahead of us had appro- 



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