FISHING AFTER DARK. 
MAY MC HENRY, 
There are several kinds of cowards, but if 
Uncle Elias was a coward, of which I have 
never felt sure, he belonged in a class of 
his own; in that, as in everything else, he 
was utterly and entirely original. He used 
to say that not to be afraid of the dark 
was to lack imagination. No one ever ac- 
cused Uncle Elias of lacking imagination. 
It was because of his generous endowment 
of this ability that when he went fishing 
for trout in the dusk of the evening, he al- 
ways took Aunt Sally Ann along. 
Aunt Sally Ann’s daughters, married and 
important, protested that it was bad for 
their mother’s rheumatism, and that it did 
not seem proper for an elderly lady to be 
wandering along the creek at night. Aunt 
Sally Ann smiled calmly at the protests. 
She liked to be taken along; it made her 
feel young, er rather it reminded her of her 
youth to be out under the dim sky of night ; 
it reminded her of her youth to walk home 
across the firefly-bedecked meadows and 
own the straggling village street, with 
Uncle Elias, because of that imagination of 
his, keeping very near to her. 
On account of the tanneries and the big 
sawmills and the lumbermen who strip the 
mountains of their forests, Fishing creek 
bids fair to have only an Irish reason for 
its name. A few years ago there were 
plenty of fish. In the lower reaches of the 
stream in deep, shaded pools, there were 
big trout, wise, reserved old aristocrats that 
were not for the common angler, not for 
any one, in fact, but the initiated. 
“Brother Elias, what kind of bait do you 
use that makes you so successful a catcher 
of fish?” the Methodist preacher asked. 
“The kind of bait, Parson, that might 
make you a successful fisher of men—un- 
ee ane and sympathy,” Uncle Elias re- 
plied. 
It was in the balmy dusk of a June 
evening that Uncle Elias caught his big 
trout. Last summer at the close of a sultry 
day Uncle Elias and Aunt Sally Ann went 
up to Swartwout’s dam with the fish bas- 
ket, the birch pole and the little bag of 
grasshoppers. A New Yorker who edits a 
paper about hunting and fishing and things 
was getting out of the stage in front of 
Boyd’s hotel. He laughed as he saw the 
chubby old sportsman with the big fish 
basket strapped over the long and ample 
linen duster, little knowing that he would 
soon be begging that same hayseed fisher- 
man to teach a New York expert how to 
catch trout. 
Swartwout’s dam is the spookiest place 
along the creek, It is in something of a 
9°7 
pocket at an angle of the steep, hemlock- 
covered hills, and only the sun at midday 
and a few ambitious stars climb high enough 
to look down into the deep, dark pool. On 
one side there is a row of dead sycamores, 
gaunt, naked, white as chalk, like a proces- 
sion of stark ghosts knee deep in the water. 
Back of the trees is a swamp, where the 
fox-fire glows and jack-o’-lanterns flicker 
when it is dark. The big trout linger 
there at the base of the hill where springs 
bubble between rocks. 
Aunt Sally Ann sat on a log near the 
dead sycamores. Uncle Elias tied the tails 
of his linen duster about his Santa Claus 
stomach and waded in his high rubber boots 
across the broken comb of the old dam. 
There is a narrow, slippery ledge of rock at 
the bottom of the hill. Uncle Elias stepped 
silently, carefully ; no abrupt moves, no rat- 
tling stones to jar the nerves of those serene 
big fellows down below. He threw out 
a grasshopper or 2 to test the temper and 
appetite of the fish. They took food eagerly. 
There was no hurry; infinte patience, infin- 
ite care in selecting and arranging the bait. 
After a wait meant to pique the curiosity of 
the fish, the grasshopper at the end of the 
line sailed out to exactly the right spot, 
dropped lightly, and almost before it 
touched the water was seized with a swish 
and a rush. The thrill passed through the 
birch pole to every fiber of Uncle Elias’ 
being. 
The trout bit well that evening. When 
Uncle Elias had as many fish as he needed 
for immediate use it was his custom to 
stop, as he deprecated greediness; but up in 
the little eddy beyond the pile of driftwood 
a trout turned a somersault for sheer joy 
and deviltry. No angler could resist the 
invitation of that mighty splash, that gleam 
of big white belly. “He’s an old resident- 
er,” Uncle Elias commented as he climbed 
over the driftwood. 
The old residenter was coy. Uncle Elias 
tried all his tricks and wiles, his choicest 
bait, his most practiced throws. In the ab- 
sorption of the true sportsman he took no 
note of time. The roll of distant thunder 
aroused him. Darkness had closed in swift- 
ly; the outlines of the opposite shore were 
lost and the tall sycamore ghosts seemed 
to be wading across toward him. A sinis- 
ter silence hung over the black pool. 
“Sally Ann! Sally Ann!” Uncle Elias 
raised his voice to his faithful wife. There 
was no answer. The roots of his hair 
turned cold. 
“Sa-a-lly! Sa-a-l-ly !” 
There was not even an echo; nothing but 
