8 



[JAN. [ T, 1809. 



There were now two grievances to be settled : and Jim 

 and I entered into a treaty offensive and defensive. I 

 procured several ounces of rhubarb and jalap, and bided 

 my time. We knew that about once a week of a Satur- 

 day old Brown came into town from his farm a mile 

 away, and as regularly got drunk, previously to 

 which he laid, in a gallon jug of whisky for his week's 

 supply. 



It was the usual custom along late in the evening, if 

 Brown was too drunk to get into his wagon, as was 

 generally the case, for some one to end him in, and start 

 the old horses for home, as they were a steady old pair, 

 and sure to take him home safely, where his farm-hand 

 received him and left him in the wagon to recover at his 

 leisure. One Saturday, soon after our little dog episode, 

 Jim reported Brown in town and very drunk. Watching 

 until he was started home, we followed cautiously, and 

 when well out of town, we stopped the team, took the 

 old tar bucket, which in those days hung under every 

 farm wagon, and with an old paint brush, which Jim 

 had provider), we proceeded to lather his face and beard 

 and hair and every reachable part of his body. Mean- 

 while, as Jim was putting on the artistic touches, I was 

 charging the whisky with my little dose. When all was 

 finished we started the team homeward. 



Brown did not do much farming the subsequent two 

 weeks. He did not feel well Sunday morning scraping 

 tar made him sick, and whisky being his universal 

 panacea for all ills, while his man and wife scraped away 

 on tar, he pulled away at the jug. Contrary to his 

 theory, the more he drank the sicker he got, until there 

 was hardly enough left of him to be worth saving. As 

 he persisted in turning to the jug between each spasm, 

 Brown and the jug were both exhausted about the same 

 time. If there had been one more pint the jug would 

 probably have won. As it was, Brown was laid up two 

 weeks for repairs, but the best of it was (which Brown 

 declared was the meanest) that from that time out he 

 could not bear even the smell of whisky. We bad un- 

 wittingly reformed Brown. 



One day, a few months later, as I was going past 

 Brown's house, he was leaning on the gate thoughtfully 

 chewing a straw. We passed the salutations, Brown's 

 good morning being unusually cordial. As I had nearly 

 passed he hailed me again, saying, " Hold on, I want to 

 ask your opinion on a question." " Well, what is it ? 

 " Do you think watermelons are going to be healthy this 

 season ? " I said I could not say about watermelons, but 

 I thought it would be a poor season for bulldogs, and 

 the quality of whisky was said to be very bad this year. 

 As I passed on Brown shook his hand after me and re- 

 marked, " Ta-ta, you consairned little cur,'' 



I think Brown could have forgiven the jalap and the 

 bulldog, but never his involuntary reformation. Such 

 is the ingratitude of this w T orld ; we do good by stealth, 

 and oar good intentions are never properly appreciated, 

 but there is a moral in the system that is worth the at- 

 tention of the prohibitionists, and no charge for the 

 recipe. 



At the lower end of our village there lived in an old 

 tumble down house a mysterious personage, generally 

 known as the Bashaw — the name arising from the fact of 

 his seldom being seen except when dressed in a long bag- 

 like garment of foreign cut, supposed to be such as 

 Orientals wear, and also from a legend that he had had 

 seven wives, all of whom had disappeared mysteriously ; 

 and we boys believed they were buried in the cellar. No 

 one ever visited him, and he never left the premises, and 

 save a foreign looking serving man no one was ever seen 

 about the place. 



There was a fine orchard back of the house, but as the 

 old fellow sat the entire day on. his back piazza overlook- 

 ing the orchard, no boy dared to sample this forbidden 

 fruit. But one day in passing I peered through the fence 

 and saw the dark-visaged servant digging a deep pit and 

 at once surmised that another wife had fallen a victim 

 to old Bluebeard and that this was a grave intended for 

 her reception. Hiding myself in the hedge I awaited 

 developments. The pit being finally finished the man 

 brought a bundle of straw and lined ft carefully and de- 

 parted. I was firmly convinced that he had gone for the 

 body, but instead he returned with a bushel basket of 

 fine large apples and dumped them in. Again he left 

 and returned with more apples and finally covering the 

 whole with straw proceeded to fill up and carefully cover 

 the "cache," and departed. I carefully marked the 

 spot and slipped away unnoticed, making a mental note 

 of some future occasion when apples became scarce. A 

 few months later, one snowy winter evening when half 

 a dozen of us boys were surreptitiously gathered in the 

 counting house of the village store, near at hand to the 

 old Bashaw's house, with a pitcher of cider and nuts and 

 raisins, a general lament went forth that we had no 

 apples. I at once bethought me of the old chap's 

 '' cache," and imported my knowledge of a supply close 

 at hand : and called for pick and shovels and volunteers. 

 This wds responded to enthusiastically; all went with 

 baskets and mining tools, and we were soon silently at 

 work and speedily reached the apples, filled the baskets 

 and carefully filling up the hole departed, having first 

 acted on the proposition of one of the boys to bury a 

 large dog that had been accidentally run over and killed 

 and lay in the street, The dog was duly consigned to the 

 hole to help fill the space left vacant and carefully eradi- 

 cating all signs of our work we returned to our den and 

 made merry well into the small hours, fortunately it 

 snowed and covered our tracks entirely. After stuffing 

 ourselves to bursting, we hid our surplus in barrels in 

 the cellar and every Saturday night with shutters care- 

 fully closed we reveled in cider and apples. 



■One day, in early spring, one of the boys came to me 

 hurriedly and reported a something going on in the old 

 Bashaw's orchard. We reconnoitred and saw the old. 

 chap out there in his long Turkish robe superintending 

 the opening of the cache. We hid ourselves and waited 

 for developments, The man dug away until finally 

 reaching the straw, which carefully removing he uttered 

 an exclamation and started back, The old man said 

 something angrily, and stooping down bent over to look 

 in. The ground being soft gave way, and into the hole 

 he went, head foremost, heels in the air, kicking and 

 yelling, the man struggling to pull him out ; when he 

 finally did, the old fellow grabbed a pick ax and made 

 for the man, who ran, and after him, with the pick 

 raised, bareheaded and the long robe streaming after 

 him, the old man pursued. Around and around the 

 orchnrd they went until the old chap caught his foot 



and fell sprawling, while the man escaped. A passing 

 farmer climbed over the fence and assisted the Bashaw 

 into the house and the doctor was sent for. We never 

 saw the old chap out again and a couple of months after 

 he was found dead in his chair. Every one of u a , firmly 

 believing in his own mind that we were the cause of his 

 death, and felt properly conscience-stricken and never 

 dared whisper a word of our midnight raid on the apple?. 

 Fortunately they had all been eaten or the attempt to eat 

 one would have choked ua, We mutually vowed to re- 

 form and steal no more apples (it being early summer 

 when there were none), and we kept our good resolutions 

 faithfully until the fait crop came in. Podoers. 



ANGLING ANNALS. 



FROM THE NOTE BOOKS OF AN OLD FISHERMAN. 



1812.— Aged 6, in Newton, Mass., began to fish for min- 

 nows, sunfish and shiners. 

 1814.— Catch perch, pickerel and pout or catfish in 

 Charles Elver and various ponds, thus far with worm 

 bait. Took my first trout in Smelt Brook, Newton, Eels 

 and catfish at night in. ponds. 



1818, — In Boston. Flounders, tomcod and eels from 

 the bridges in summer; also an occasional small codfish; 

 these with clam bait. In the fall we took smelts from 

 the wharves with minnow bait; sometimes three or four 

 dozan in a tide. At that time there were no fishing 

 tackle shops, the hardware stores sold hooks and lines for 

 hand line fishing, but no rods, reels, flies or the hundred 

 kinds of tackle which now tempt the angler. When I 

 aspired to the use of a rod it was a cane pole, and my 

 reel was of wood, made by myself. Anglers who wanted 

 fice tackle had to import it from England. 



1819. — Leave school and go to work in a store, so had 

 no time for fishing for years. 



1825. — Took my vacation in a fishing trip to Barnsta- 

 ble, Cape Cod. Found plenty of trout in streams and 

 ponds— got twenty to thirty pounds in a day, with worms, 

 average siz9 half a pound. This year my last catch of 

 trout in Newton, the stream being' nearly fished out; I 

 got a handsome brace of trout weighing two pounds. 

 After this no fishing for many years, spent in business at 

 home and abroad. 



1839. — Remove to Chicago, then a small town on the 

 verge of the wilderness, but with abundance of game 

 and fish. In the Chicago River, now an open sewer, we 

 found pike, pickerel, black bass, catfish and dogfish; from 

 the lake pier we took lake trout, two to five pounds, pick- 

 erel, pike-perch, perch and catfish, these last sometimes 

 up to twenty pounds in weight. 



In the Calumet Eiver.muscalonge, pike-perch, pickerel, 

 black bass, large-mouth, and catfish. All these taken 

 with minnows, for the spoon was not then in use; the 

 first that I saw were in use in the lake schooners about 

 1845, and were used in trolling for lake trout. 



In 1840 there were but two houses on the Calumet 

 River from its mouth to the bridge, about four miles up; 

 these were log taverns. Fish were very abundant, lOOlbs! 

 to a rod of pickeral and bass were often taken in a day, 

 pickerel from two to five pounds, bass from one to six 

 pounds, a few muscalonge; one I saw at the mouth of the 

 river, which was taken in a seine in the lake, was six 

 feet long and estimated to weigh eighty ponnds, and, I 

 think, correctly. 



About this time the effects of an English immigrant 

 were sold at auction in Chicago, among them a box of 

 fishing tackle, which I bought for a trifling sum, and 

 found in it hooks, lines, gut, trout flies, reels, and an 

 English trout rod; a clumsy affair, compared with the 

 American fly-rod of to day, built of hickory and ash, and 

 weighing at least a pound, but it proved a useful weapon 

 for the heavy fish of that region. 



1841. — Made a trip to the Sault St. Mary, outlet of Lake 

 Superior. Fished in the rapids in bark canoe with 

 Indians, also in the adjacent streams, and got many 

 trout up to 2lbs. in weight, with fly, usually 20 to bOlbs. 

 a day. 



1842. — I investigate the lakes in Waukesha county, 

 Wis. — Pewaukee, Pine Lake, Okauchee and Oconomowoc 

 —find black and rock bass, pike and pike-perch in abund- 

 ance; some pike weighing 181bs. I have seen taken there. 

 In B ».ck River I take my first black bass with a fly. 



-1843.— I place a boat in Crystal Lake, in McKenny 

 county, 111., where no boat had been. In our first day's 

 fishing two rods killed 100 fish, one-half black bass from 

 2 to 41bs., the balance rock bass and pickerel. In one 

 day at the Calumet River two rods take, trolling from 

 the mouth of the river to the bridge, 250 lbs. of pike and 

 bass. 



1845. — Fish the Fox River from Geneva to Batavia, 

 wiLh minnows and fly. Twenty-live to thirty bass, 2 to 

 31bs. weight; this in July. 



1846, May. — At Ottawa, at mouth of Fox River, fished 

 three days with Delano, of the Fox River House. Got in 

 that time 4001bs. of black bass. 



1866, June and July.— At Newport, R. I. Going out 

 with a fisherman in his boat I take tautog, sea bass, 

 weakfish, flounders and striped bass, 40 or 50lbs. in a 

 day. We fish from Fort Dumpling to Point Judith, and 

 round the island to West River. 



1868. — To the Adirondaeks in July. Camp out for 

 three weeks. Brook trout from ^lb, to 21ba, ; about 501bs. 

 while out. 



1870, August. — St. Lawrence River, at Alexandria Bay, 

 in five days' fishing got 105 pike, 22 bass, 2 pike-percb, 2 

 chub, 6 perch, 1 eel — about SOOibs. of fish. 



1871. July. — To the Restigouche for salmon. Fished 

 five days, got four salmon— 24, 22, 12, 3— and about fifty 

 trout, average 6oz. in weight. In that river trout were 

 found as abundant as chubs or shiners in New England 

 waters, but were treated with equal contempt by the 

 salmon fishers. From the Restigouche to the Nouvelle, 

 another tributary of the Bay of Chaleure, where sea 

 trout are abundant and large. With two Indians in a 

 canoe camped out two days and brought home fifteen 

 trout weighing 87^1b3., besides those that we ate, all 

 taken with the fly. Coming directly from a salmon 

 river, I noticed the similarity of habits and action of 

 these trout to the salmon, differing in these respects 

 much from the brook trout, which are found in the same 

 waters. 



1871, February.— To East Florida, three months at 

 New Smyrna and the Indian River. Found sheepshead, 

 red bass, salt-water trout, whiting, blackfish, groupers, 

 snappers, etc., in abundance, so that with band line or 

 rod one could get 501 bs. of fish in about an hour. ' 



1872, July.— To Prince Edward's Island, one day's fish- 

 ing with mine host at Charlottetown. Took about 25lb s . 

 of trout, i to 21bs. Thence to the Tabusintac in tho 

 Province of New Brunswick. Fished this river one day 

 with a guide, uriag flies. We filled a champagne basket 

 with sea, trout from 4oz. to 2lbs. in weight, returning to 

 the water all under 4oz; and it was a poor day for trout, 

 the guide said, being very hot and calm, with a great 

 thunderstorm in the air, which came the next day. 



1872. September.— To Plymouth, Mass. Fished two 

 ponds for black bass with mine host, Mr. Perry, but 

 without much success, getting about half a dozen small 

 fish. 



1872, February.— To south Florida for three months, took 

 rods and reels and good tackle with me, and killed some 

 hundred weight of sheepshead, red bass, etc., largest bass 

 25lbs., largest sheepshead 61bs., also sharks and sting 

 rays up to 501bs, weight. 



187a. July.— To Moosehead Lake and upper Penobscot: 

 camped out two weeks. Plenty of trout 4oz. to 21b3. to 

 feed party of six men. Insects so bad that we shortened 

 our stay in the woods. 



1873, February.— To south Florida, three months at 

 New Smyrna. Fishing good, largest red bass 371bs., 

 largest sheepshead 61bs, Had a day on Spruce Creek 

 with black bass— large-mouth; got forty, from 2 to 41bs, 

 in weight, trolling with spoons. 



1874, July. — To Pine Lake aud Jordan River in Michi- 

 gan. Pike and black bass (small-mouth) in lake; 2 to 

 4lbs. for bass and up to 61bs. for pike. In Jordan River 

 many small trout and few grayling were caught. 



February. — To Mosquito Inlet, East Florida, where the 

 fishing was as good as ever. Red or channel bass of 301b-'. 

 and sheepshead of olbs. were taken. 



1875, July.— To lakes in Waukesha county, Wis., and 

 to Green Lake, Wis. Small-mouth black bass, pike-perch 

 and pike, latter up to lOlbs. 



March.— To Mosquito Lake, East Florida, for two 

 months. Many anglers there, but fish enough for all. 



1876, Augu-t.— To Cohasset Narrows, Mass., for blue- 

 fish; got a few by trolling up to olb3. weight. 



March.— To Mosquito Inlet, E ist Florida, for two 

 months. Find the fishing the same as usual: on most 

 days 80 or 40lbs. of bass or sheepshead can be got in a 

 few hours. 



Return from the Inlet to Boston in a schooner loaded 

 with live oak timber. 



1877, August.— To the Magallpway River in New Hamp • 

 shire; fish the river and Sturtevant's Lake one day with 

 flies; trout do not rise well, largest taken l^-lbs. 



1878, February.— To Mosquito Lake, East Florida, for 

 three months. Fishing good; largest bass, 2olbs, ; sheeps- 

 head abundant; largest, 71bs. 



1880.— Remove to Marietta, Ga. A hill country, with 

 few lakes or rivers. To Florida in March. 



1885, July. — To Lake Gogebic, Wis., for a week. Many 

 anglers there: bass do not bite well. I got about a dozen 

 each day that I went out, from 2 to 31bs. each, with grass- 

 hopper bait. The bass would not take spoon or minnow 

 bait. S. C. C. 



MY FIRST SHOOTING LESSON. 



I INHERITED a love for shooting, and at ten years of 

 age began to pester for a gun that should be my "very 

 own." The gun, an old siuglebairel, bad come into the 

 family long before I appeared, and sad to relate, I had for 

 some little time been in the habit of hooking said gun on 

 Saturday mornings and snaking it off to the barn, where 

 I tucked it away in the hay loft until after my father's 

 departure for town, when out she would come and off we 

 would go together for tbe woods. One morning I saw 

 father examining the old piece, and fearing that some 

 disagreeable questions might be asked, I made myself 

 scarce. After thinking the matter over I decided that the 

 best thing to do would be to ask for the gun for my own, 

 for I well knew that should my secret be discovered it 

 would be "good-bye gun." 



After much persuasion on my part, it was ordered that 

 my "big brother" should take me out and show me how 

 to' shoot (imagine my delight). So one morning we 

 wended our way to the shore after "teeter snipe." Putting 

 in a light load (my usual charge was from three to 

 four fingers) my big brother took me to an old dock, and 

 after resting the gun barrel on the string piece, carefully 

 cocked the piece and placed the butt on my shoulder. 

 Pointing out a bit of seaweed about twenty yards away 

 among the drift, he instructed me to wait until the snipe 

 should come as near as that seaweed, then take careful 

 aim and blaze away. I shall never forget my feelings. 

 My brother was acting in good faith, while I w^is playing 

 the miserable hypocrite. I waited until he reached the 

 bank, where he seated himself to watch the proceedings. 

 Then letting the hammer down, I jumped from the dock 

 and stole along the beach in spite of loud commands in 

 big brother style. As I approached the snipe the little 

 fellows ran together as is the habit of "teters," and after 

 the usual preliminary " wig waggnig'* took wing. I pulled 

 on the flock as they sailed away, and three came out dead. 

 Picking them up, and putting on a "big brace," I walked 

 back to big brother. Not a word as I approached. I 

 stood before him. "You're a young devil," said he. 



Well, I guess he was right: at all events 1 did not con- 

 tradict him. W. Townsend 

 Bat RrooK, L. 1. 



To Old Railroad Men. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



I wish to obtain the names and present address of 

 one or more men who, between the years 1869 and lbi'3. 

 •were conductors, engineers or firemen serving on the 

 western divisions of the Kansas Pacific R. R. in Kansas 

 or Colorado. From such persons I desire to obtain cer- 

 tain information with regard to events which took place 

 in Kansas and eastern Colorado in the early days of rail- 

 road travel in those States. It i3 requested that such ad- 

 dresses be sent me, care Forest and Sire.vm. 



Buffalo. 



The Best. 



I fixe Fgkbst and Stream for reftreiie?. It is the btiSt pub- 

 lication or the kind in the country, and grows hdtrer each year.— 

 P. T. B. fCnnowingo, Md.). 



The Right Thing in the Right Place. 



You don't know what j >y It has been to be in tbe Maine woods 

 again— with some stoi tny days on band and IS or 20 unread back, 

 numbers of Forest and Stream!— Boston. 



