JUT.T S, ISW.J 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
11 
MEN 1 HAVE FISHED WITH. 
XLlVi-Franklln Satterthwalte. 
Frank was the kennel editor of Forest akd Stbeast 
when T first met him, some seventeen years ago, as an en- 
thusiastic sportsman who favored the gun more thanthe rod. 
He was tall, broad-shouldered and strong, with a pleasant 
face, on which he wore a full, but not long beard. We be- 
came well acquainted, and one day he said: "A friend of 
mine keeps a hotel on Greenwood Lake, and wants me to 
come up and have a few days' black bass fishing. He says 
they are biting good, now. Will you go up there for a few 
days?" 
Beyond a knowledge that the lake had a reputation for 
black bass, was only a short distance from New York city, 
and lay partly in New Jersey and partly in New York, I 
knew nothing of it; but we went. The "hotel" was one of 
several similar houses built of light boards and standing on 
piles — evidently made for summer use only — and could prob- 
ably accommodate a dozen people, if they were not too par- 
ticular. Frank introduced me to the landlord, whom I will 
call Bill — not that that was his name, but merely to be able 
to refer to him. Bill would not impress one as a model land- 
lord — he was too familiar and aggressive. He wore great 
cowhide boots, which echoed on the thin board floor of the 
"oifice," which, was destitute of all covering except dirt. 
It was evening, and June was young. Supper over. Bill 
and his family soon retired, but Frank and I were not used 
to such early hours, and we we sat and admired the night in 
ignorance of the fact that these people who went to bed with 
the fowls got up with them, and made no attempt to stifle 
their noises after it was "time to get up." We were at the 
northern end of the lake, and a light, southern breeze kept 
the mogquitoes off the piazza, if any were about. Frogs 
piped, croaked and gurgled in a marsh, a whippoorwill reit- 
erated its complaint on the hill, and an occasional owl chal- 
lenged some other owl, and we were enjoying life with feet 
on the railing of the porch and chairs tilted back when a 
single stroke of the clock warned us that it was technically 
morning, and time for bed . 
It seemed but a few minutes when we were aroused by a 
series of bumps and a clatter that would have awakened all 
of the famous seven sleepers, and I sat up in bed and rubbed 
my eyes. It was daylight, and a glance at Frank's bed 
showed him to be aroused. "What is it?" I asked. "What 
has happened?" 
"It's Bill going downstairs' in his boots, that's all; at first 
I thought it was an earthquake." 
We heard him go out ot the back door and down two or 
three steps; the clock struck 4, and then all was quiet and 
peaceful again and we slept. How long one sleeps he can 
never tell, but it seemed to be about five minutes when Bill 
hailed from the back yard: "John, get up and milk the 
cows, it's most 5 o'clock, an' you've got a lot of things to do 
before you go out on the lake." We dozed again, and then 
John's boots were so much in evidence on the resounding 
stair that I missed something Frank said. He may have 
been saying his prayers; I only caught a word or two. Again 
silence reigned and eyelids closed in that blessed peaceful- 
ness which comes just before consciousness is lost, and then 
the dreadful voice of Bill again broke in on us from below. 
This time he bellowed: "Mayree-el Come down and get 
breakfast, it's about 6 o'clock." Mary went down ; we heard 
her, although apparently she did not wear cowhide boots. 
Frank merely grunted, and 1 was too sleepy to care to express 
any views on what we afterward concluded was an outrage 
on men who were paying for sleep but not getting it, so off I 
dozed again, and the next thing we heard was a clumping of 
boots coming up the stair and then a pounding on our door. 
Bill called : "Hey I You fellers, ain't you goin' to get up to- 
day? Breakfast's ready." 
We were both on the floor at the first alarm, and as Bill 
opened the door a trifle my shoe struck scross the crack, 
which was not wide enough to let it through to its destina- 
tion. A small pitcher from Frank crashed on a panel, and 
Bill closed the door and clumped down, step by step, to the 
main floor. "iSorry I didn't have a pistol," said Frank; 
"but the little pitcher was the only thing at hand and I gave 
him the best I had. There's no use in trying to get any 
more sleep this morning, so we might as well dress and go 
down." 
"Frank," said I, "let us go to some other hotel, where 
our chances of sleep will be better and the landlord will not 
dictate to us the proper hour for rising, and where he does 
not wear 61b. cowhide boots, nor play checkers with them 
on bare floors over our heads. Then, if he has a way of 
calling his help at daylight without our knowledge, we may 
he happy during our stay.!' 
"There's no such place on the lake," said Frank, "except at 
the club, and we have no invitations to go there. Let's go 
down to breakfast and say nothing, go out on the lake and 
fish, lay off in the middle of the day, fish in the evening, 
and then, when we are not angry, we will talk to Bill like a 
Dutch uncle. We will not feel so much like killing him 
then, and I think I see murder in your eye. What d've sav 
to that?" 
"You are a philosopher, Frank; nothing we can do will 
restore our lost sleep ; but if we can partially civilize Bill so 
that he will either not wear boots or will leave them on the 
back porch, and get him to use other means than bawling to 
arouse his household at unseemly houis, it will be a good 
deed. Better than killing him, but I have doubts of success 
in these experiments. We will try, but must not let him 
bully us a little bit." 
The ham and eggs, potatoes, bread and coffee were dis- 
posed of without any reference to the annoyances, and John 
appeared. He was to row the boat. By s^me distortion of 
language the men who do this on Greenwood Lake are 
called "guides"; we have no word equivalent to the English 
"gillie," but we need it. Bill came to the landing, and 
learning that we wanted some baits to use if the bass 
wouldn't rise to the fly, he put in the boat a box of Ave 
frogs, a can of live mmnows and a box of helgramite larvEe, 
Dobson's, m moss, and away we went. Frank had fished 
the lake before, and told the boatman where to go, and as 
we cast we took two good bass with a green and gold fly, 
and three with a frog. These fish we unhooked and let go, 
and John was displeased, and said that if we didn't want 
the fish we might give them to him. He did not understand 
the thing at all. and after we had pulled up ashore for a 
lunch and a midday siesta, he said to me in an injured tone: 
"When gentlemen catch fish they don't want they give 'em 
to me an' I sell 'em, but you let 'em go, an' they don't do 
nobody no good," 
"John," said I, picking his meaning from the wreck of 
grammar, "when I catch a fish it is mine, to do with as 1 
please. When I hire you to row this boat for the day, and 
choose to lay off from noon until two hours before simdown 
you have no cause of complaint. The fish are mine, your 
time is mine, and if I want to let you off for a few hours I 
do so, and if we wish to let a bass off until we come again, 
it is the same thing." 
After lunch Frank and I went up on a hill where there 
was a chance for air and shade, to smoke, chat and possibly 
regain a small portion of the sleep which had been robbed 
from us, and after getting settled under a broad tree, close to 
the eastern edge of its shade where we might stay for some 
hours, Frank said: "These yokels exasperate me as much as 
they do you, but I think they afford me more amusement 
than you get out of them. You've been angry all day be- 
cause you didn't get enough sleep, and in this spirit you let 
all the bass go when you knew that John wanted them. It 
would be a safe wager that you don't always refuse to give a 
portion of your catch to your guide or your boatman, in 
addition to his pay, come nowl I challenge you to deny 
it." 
' 'It's a safe challenge. Ordinarily I give the boatman all 
the fish I don't want to keep, but there is no reason why he 
should demand them. I pay for his services, and that ends 
the business transaction. I paid for a whole mess of sleep 
last night, which I didn't get and I don't like it, and when 
we get quieted down after dinner to-night Bill will learn that 
I didn't like it. I did not come here to be told when I 
should sleep nor when I should rise, nor did you, and I will 
have no more of it if I have to buy a tent and camp out. In 
that case there will be no thin-carpeted stairs for men with 
cowhide boots to tramp up and down on in the obnoxious 
hours of the morning." 
Frank raised himself on his elbow, and refilling his pipe 
naively asked : "What are the obnoxious hours of the morn- 
ing?" 
The question brought up a family reminiscence and I re- 
plied : "You only ask this question in order to draw me out 
on the question of early rising, and 1 will tell you frankly 
that 1 usually avoid the unnecessarily early-rising crank and, 
from what I know of your habits, you do the same. The 
early-rising man thinks that he is a model for all mankind, 
and that's the aggravating part of him. He misses the most 
glorious part of the day, that from sundown to midnight, 
and to that no man could object if he didn't brag of it. Like 
the man who is never sea-sick, or who lies about it, his brag 
that he is a superior man is annoying. The early riser goes 
to bed with the chickens, and that would be all right if he 
did not boast about the hour that he got up in the"morning. 
I'll tell you, Frank, a personal yarn about early rising: my 
father always went to bed with the crows and got up with 
them. When I was a school-boy he would pull the clothes 
from my bed at 8 A. M., spank me and say: 'What! not up 
yet I Why, I've been up four hours.' And so it went, but he 
took an afternoon nap and kept on bragging about his early 
rising," 
Frank listened to this and said: "I could never see why 
rising early should make a man 'healthy, wealthy and wise.' 
My work has kept me at it night and day, but the beauties 
of the night cannot be ignored; what did your father do 
when he became older?" 
"Kept the same thing going, and the same brag about it, 
I fail to see why a man should boast about meeting the day 
at an early hour, as long as he gets a certain amount of 
sleep, but, after many years absence from home, father 
found me in bed about 8 in the morning, and with a tone of 
regret said : 'I don't see that you've improved any in the 
matter of getting up, now that you are a man.' 'No, father,' 
said I, 'during six years in the West and three in the army I 
mastered most of the vices of civilization except early rising, 
but I never could catch on to that.' He gave up hope of 
reforming me then and there." 
We rested and slept until the afternoon was well gone, 
when we went to the boat and called John. Frank tried a 
Dobson and took one small fish, while I changed flies for an 
hour and gave it up. Then we tried the live minnows and 
took eleven fair fish, and it was dark. We gave the fish to 
Bin and I told him that we wanted them for breakfast, or a 
part of them, and also that we wanted them skinned. 
"Why do you want them skinned?" Frank asked. 
"To get rid of the muddy, weedy flavor which fresh- water 
fish that live in weedy lakes always have in the summer. I 
don't regard the black bass as a good table fish at any time 
of year, but it is sure to be flavored with weeds now, just as 
the water is. Even the yellow perch, a much better table 
fish at all times, is better for being skinned in summer." 
Our dinner was the same as the breakfast, except tea waa 
served instead of coffee. Frank protested in this wise: 
"When I was up here last fall, woodcock shooting. Bill, you 
fed me on ham and eggs until I was ashamed to look a hog or 
a hen in the face, and to-morrow night I want a steak, chops, 
or a roast of beef or lamb, for I'm not going to live on ham 
and eggs, nor fish, either." 
Bdl looked at me and asked : "Don't you like ham and 
eggs?" 
'■Yes, I like ham and eggs, but I think as Frank does, 
there is a limit to the liking. I don't want them for dinner 
at any time, but can use them for breakfast about twice a 
week, if the ham is not too hard and salt, and the eggs are 
fresh. Your eggs are very good." This last as a smoother. 
"Well, I declare," said Bill, "some of you city fellers is 
queer. Now, give me plenty of ham and eggs and I don't 
want no meat." This was a phase of vegetarianism new 
to us, and one that we often referred to in alter years. 
As we smoked on the piazza Frank remarked : "This land- 
lord is a skin. He'll charge us $2 50 per day for board, |2 
for the boatman, who gets a little more than half of that, 
and 50 cents per day for the boat, making $7,50 per day for 
both, and he will leed us on ham and eggs all the time, if 
we will stand it. I know him, and I propose to make him 
feed us decently or we will go somewhere else, although I 
don't know that there is anything better here." 
"I think you have his exact measure," I replied, "and as I 
followed your advice this morning and said nothing to him 
while I was angry, I propose to talk to him now, on the sub- 
ject of unnecessary noises in the morning. Call him out 
nere and I'll lay the law down to him." 
Bill came out and sat down. I began my discourse with: 
"Bill, I am very sorry that my shoe didn't kill you this 
morning, as I intended it should, but we will be prepared 
for you to-morrow morning, and if we miss kihing you 
again we will patronize some other hotel. I probably got 
three hotu:s' good sleep before you came thundering down the 
stairs with your big boots about 4 o'clock." 
"Well," He replied, "what be I a-goin' to dew? I've got 
to get up an' feed the stock an' get ready for the day's work. 
I should think you'd want to get up, anyway, an' enjoy the 
mornin' fishin' — many of 'em do — an' get out on the lake as 
soon as they can see; that's the time to catch the most fish." 
"That, Bill," I replied, "is a matter of individual taste, 
but we don't want to catch the most fish. We want to enjoy 
life after our own fashion, and that is to fish four or five 
hours a day and sit half the night out of doors, and get up 
when it suits us. If you consult the comfort of your guests 
you will leave those boots in the cow-shed and wear slippers 
in the house, and devise some means to get your servants up, 
and down, without bawling under our windows. You should 
know this without having a guest explain it. We will fish 
at such times as we choose, or not at all ; but we will not 
submit to be awakened at daylight by your boots, or any other 
noises. " 
Bill made no reply; he was evidently shrinking aU his 
thought on the rights of guests and landlords, and after a 
pause, Frank asked him to the rear to look after the cleaning 
of the fish, and I sat alone as the echoes of his boots had 
died away. Minutes passed ; a flying squirrel ran across the 
balcony rail, and over my shoes before it scurried away in 
alarm. The moon burst from behind a cloud, and the frogs 
became silent for a moment until they found there was no 
cause for alarm, and I had forgotten Frank, Bill, and all 
other human beings, when suddenly Frank returned. 
"Well?" 
"It's all right. As I told you, he is a skin; but, like all of 
his class, he only wants to know how far he can flay a man. 
At present we are his only gue.sts, and he will play us to the 
limit if he can ; but you put it to him squarely, and while we 
stop here we will be allowed to remain undisturbed till 8, 
unless we order breakfast before; and we will not have ham 
and eggs more than twice a week for breakfast, and fish not 
more than three times with dinner, as I told Bill before. I 
told him that we would stay about a week, and that we were 
both journalists who might write up his hotel unfavorably. 
He took off his boots in the kitchen, and said that there waa 
no good reason for wearing them up and down stairs, and so 
you got in your work to good advantage." 
A faint creak on the stair told that Bill had left his boots 
below. I was not flushed with victory, but just felt that 
calm self-appreciation which one feels when otners acknowl- 
edge that his point has been carried. We sat, talked, smoked 
and kept silent as our humors prompted. After an unusually 
long fit of contemplation of the moonlight on the water, 
Frank asked: "How do you like this place? Not for the 
fishing, the cuisine, nor the dormitory which we have, but 
the lake and its surroundings I mean ; and as a place to enjoy 
life in the open, fishing, shooting, or simply sitting on a 
piazza and looking at the lake?" 
"Jt is grand," I replied; "and if our landlord "reforms most 
of his bad habits, 1 will enjoy another outing here, mainly 
during the hours from sundown to midnight, on this piazza, 
watching the moon on the water and listening to the voices 
of the night. I love to tish and sometimes to shoot ; but to 
me the grandest enjoyment is an inland lake on a moonlight 
night, when the air is vocal with voices that are never heard 
at any other time." 
After a few whiffs at his pipe in a contemplative sort of 
way, Frank said: "You seem to be extra poetical to-night; 
suppose we get off some verses that will amuse us by record- 
ing our thoughts on this night, writing the lines alternately. 
How does it strike you?" 
"You mean tor one of us to write a line and the other to 
follow; is that it?" 
"Yes; like a composite poem. You write a line and then 
I'll follow. Do you catch on?" 
"Yes, I have the idea and think there is some humor in it; 
but as this is your own suggestion it seems to me that you 
should write the first line." 
We squabbled over this question of precedence for a while, 
and then one of us. which one fame will never know, wrote 
a line and passed it to his friend. In its complete form the 
"poem," written. on the shore of Greenwood Lake that June 
evening, waa as follows:-- 
'Tis cool on Bill's piazza, where the voices of the Dighc 
Are mmgled with the whispers of the bass; 
The snoring of the hired man fills the rabbits with affright, 
And the owls sing, "Don'c blow out the gas." 
The moonbeams kiss the bullfrogs, who lament unto the moon, 
That Bill's boots resound upon the stair ; 
The kitchen-maid rejoices that morning comes too soon. 
And the skeeters cause the poUy wogs to swear. 
Right here on Bill's piazza it is pleasant now to sit. 
And listen to the singing of the rats; 
While we gaze out on the lake, where the festive mermaids flit, 
As they chase the tuneful, iridescent bats. 
In autumn it is pleasant to hear the chestnut hurr, 
And in spring to hear the young trees as they shoot; 
The maiden clubs the milch cows when they toss a horn atlier. 
As we wake in morn at sound of Bill's big boot. 
The first line was all right, but the man who wrote the 
second one started in the direction of levity, and there was 
no hope of holding the verses up to the standard but it 
served to pass half an hour pleasantly, and that is what we 
were out for. 
One day as we were on our way to the place of bur after- 
noon siesta we saw a man lying in the sun by the roadside. 
"Some old tramp," said Frank ; but the man began to toss and 
roll over, as in agony, and we ran to him. It was Charles 
F. Murphy, of Newark, N. J., the man who made the first 
complete split-bamboo rod, and he was merely able to say 
"buttermilk," and I diagnosed his case at once, and from 
my creel drew a vial of Jamaica ginger, or similar remedy, 
and gave him a generous dose. He lived, and said that some 
miles back he had stopped at a farmhouse and had absorbed 
a quart of buttermilk, but would hereafter abstain from its 
use. Said he: "Boys, you have saved my life, sure, I 
couldn't have lived another hour in such pain ; I couldn't 
walk, and 1 dropped my rods somewhere, in my agony, but 
I can't tell where." 
We found the package of rods, and took him to our rest- 
ing place, where, with frequent interruptions from Frank, 
who was disposed to jolly his old friend on his buttermilk 
spree, I heard the story of the evolution of the spiit-bamboo 
rod from the man who first made it. Some other time I 
may tell it. Frank's suggestions were like this: 
'■Murph, never mind about rod-making; we all know 
about tnat; tell Fred about the time you whipped Awful 
Gardiner when you didn't know that he was a heavy-weight 
prize-fighter; that'll be more exciting." 
"Never mind that," Murphy said, "Orvdle Gardiner is all 
right, he's reformed now and is a decent man ; let me tell 
how the first rod of this kind was made ; you see Sam Phil- 
lipps, out atEaston, Pa, began to use a natural Calcutta bam- 
boo cane for a fishing rod, as far back aa 1848, but — " 
"Tell ua about the fight, Murph., Fred wants to hear how 
