July ^, iSgg.j 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
"I can't make even a fair guess what kind of tools 
the young man of to-day will have when he is as old 
as we are," said Jim. "Perhaps he will look back to 
this time with the same feelings that we look back to 
our youth, and will wish for a return of the good old 
hammerless days, and so the world goes along. As we 
grow older we do not see things in the same way that 
we used to. Sportsmen, more than any other class, 
seem to delight in calling back their earlier days, and 
I think their frequent communion with nature, which 
never changes, is responsible for this. It is a constant 
reminder of days when strife and responsibility were un- 
wnknown, when the morrow was looked forward to as 
d. continuation of the joys of the present. Recall your 
boyhood days when the fields seem to have been greener, 
the sun shone brighter and your bread and/butter tasted 
better than anything you get now. Does the boy of 
to-day experience the same feeling? I don't know, but 
I cannot believe he does, I like to think of the old 
home when I was a boy; the bright fields and the dark 
woods that bordered them; the big barn and the old 
wagon house, even the woodshed, with recollection of 
irksome tasks and occasional interviews with pa. Days 
when a little labor went a great way, and nothing de- 
pended upon it but the punishment if it was not per- 
formed] when I never became tired nor cared for ap- 
pearance; when I was proud of my stonebruise or walked 
on my heel with a stubbed toe; when my supper con- 
sisted of a bowl of bread and milk, and I went to bed 
under the shingle roof and was asleep before I fairly 
touched the pillow. The city boy grows to manhood 
without knowledge of these things. He learns to shoot 
because he looks upon it as a fad; he becomes enthused, 
then a sportsman and a better man." 
"We can't be boys again," said the neighbor, "but 
we can indulge in a boy's pastime. What do you say 
to a day's fishing?" . 
"It's a capital thought. Where would you g'o?" 
"We can't go far in a day, btit we might hunt tip a 
quiet nook somewhere down river where we can spend 
the day in loafing around and develop an appetite at 
least." 
"Then let's take the women along and makfe a picnic 
of it," said Jim, as the door opened and he lieard the 
rustle of a dress in the next room. , 
"That's a better thought yet; we'll do it." 
"What's this about the women?" asked the neighbor's 
wife, entering the room. 
"Oh, nothing; only we're .going to take you fishing," 
said the neighbor. 
"And have yoit consulted them j^et?" she asked; but 
there was a gleam of pleasure in her eyes that assured 
the men there would be no trouble to gain consent, and 
Jim departed to make known the plan to his wife. 
J. H. B. 
Pittsburg, Pa., June 2T. 
Memories of the Connecticut Valley. 
Emporia, Kan., June.^ — Editor Forest and Stream: 
While you of the Eastland have been burning up with heat 
and drouth, Kansas has been blessed with a week of 
abundant showers, and so the prairies with their wealth of 
future harvests are beautiful to look upon. But a rainy 
day here is something to be dreaded. There is little of the 
lushness and sweetness of such a day in New England, 
but a time of stickiness, nastiness and mud beyond com- 
pare ; and so instead of going a-fishing as one should, even 
if they cannot catch anything but mud cats and turtles, I 
have been moping about the house enjoying your corre- 
spondent who signs himself with two stars (I wish he 
would not be quite so modest, but give his name). 
His trip to the Running Gutter Brook in Hatfield, 
Mass., has set me to thinking of the many days so pleasant 
to look back upon I have spent along that brook, and 
about the old mill pond of which he also speaks. It was 
my boyhood playground, and though I have since wan- 
dered over a good bit of our broad land, yet I have never 
found its equal, nor do I think it is all because we are apt 
to hold the things of our childhood so dear as we look 
back upon them. For with several thousand acres of 
woodland almost unbroken, save by the old wood roads ; 
with the hills rising as abrupt as New England granite can 
make them ; with sweet cold springs of water and several 
brooks made up from these springs, clear and beautiful 
as only the brooks that the trout love can be ; and formerly 
with several ponds that have since, by the breaking of the 
dams, gone out — it is altogether a bit of the Adirondacks 
in miniature. And it is only twenty miles from Spring- 
field. Some time it will be appreciated; and though a tres- 
pass notice and a wire fence take away the wilderness and 
freedom from the woods, yet this is coming to be the only 
way to keep the wild creatures with us ; and, so I hope the 
;day will come when the deer and even the moose will feed 
in what was once their pasture ground, even if it shall be 
behind the woven wire. 
Men are still living who have seen wild turkeys in these 
woods. It is too far north for quail to succeed without 
special care — for they are found but little north of Mts. 
Tom and Holyoke. But in my boyhood days I have 
lushed in two hours over twenty ruffed grouse within a 
tnile of the house. The snipe and woodcock loved the 
damp places ; the wild ducks well knew the shallow feed- 
ing places of the ponds ; the wild pigeons loved the grand 
old pines that then stood like the monarchs they were on 
hese lands. Foxes were plenty enough for the good of 
the other game, with an occasional wildcat to keep them 
company. In the winter occasionally the track of an 
Jtter was seen where he had dragged himself from one 
3rook to another ; and in the sprang on the slush ice of the 
3ond there were usually two, side by side, dragging them- 
selves for a distance, then in their haste springing forward 
1 number of feet, and so passing on up to their summer 
Itiarters. Th'e big Northern hare and his smaller cousin, 
;he cottontail, afforded their full share of sport; and the 
;ray, red and chipmunk squirrels abounded. For rarities 
m occasional great blue heron was seen. A pair of big fish 
jagles nested yearly in a pine on mountain side. Rarely a 
bald eagle would visit us; and the great Northern owl 
;ach winter told us when a thaw was coming; and on one 
Dccasion one stayed all night for my delectation undis- 
:urbed, I am glad to say, although then, boy-like, T wished 
[or a rifle to shoot him with. I know not how much of all 
this wealth of wild li-fe is left now. The grand old forests 
are gone; for— and I regret to say it — my hands helped in 
their destruction; but the second growth is there. The 
rocks and hills are indestructible. The springs still boil 
up. The brooks still add of their fullness to the Con- 
necticut. The arbutu.s, the Indian pipe and the lady slip- 
per can be found by those who love them. The winter- 
green, checkerberry and all the running vines still make 
the woods beautiful. With care and protection much of 
the Avild life could be restored and other wildness and 
beauty added. 
But to come back to your correspondent, for while by 
this time I did not suppose there was a fair sized trout 
left in the brook, yet I trust that the big one of which he 
spoke, increased in length and girth by two years of good 
feeding, was waiting for his especial benefit. I trust the 
black flies all had business elsewhere. I trust the mos- 
quitoes were so gorged with the blood of other fishermen 
that day that they were content to let him pass undis- 
turbed; that he stirred up no hornets' nest; that the 
ruffed grouse with an apparently broken wing led him a 
chase only to leave him with the rush and roar of wing so 
pleasant to hear ; that he got very thirsty and waited until 
he reached the Williamsburg road, and then at the little 
ford between the woods and bridge, where the water purls 
over the white pebbles, he lay down and drank and drank 
and drank; that then he went on over to the west branch 
toward where it comes down from the mountain, and 
found the place where the brook comes rushing over the 
ledge into the saucer-shaped pool, and after whirling 
around a few times hurries on again ; and then "with good 
digestion waiting on appetite" he sat down and ate his 
luncheon, while the robins and blackbirds and pines sang 
to him their sweetest music, and though too late for 
arbutus and too early for buttercups, yet some sweet first 
wild rose of summer welcomed him with its half-opened 
blossom. And then picking up a goodly fish here and 
there he found his way down to the Hubbard's mill pond 
dam— now I suppose only a ruin; and so to the pond of 
the sawmill; then leaving the Cowles Meadow Brook for 
another day, went home. All this and all the other good 
that that delectable land could give him— if he is a good 
fisherman and true— I trust were his that day. 
I would like to give him or some one else a hint in .re- 
gard to some big trout. If the mill dam is the same as it 
was, go down under the hill and you will find a pool of 
water that is partly under the planks of the sluiceway. 
Under those plank is — or was — the hiding place of trout 
that will weigh from 2 to 4lbs. I knew they were there, as 
several that weighed like that were speared there (I had 
no hand in the business). But I never could get one, as I 
used only worms in my fishing, and as they had abundance 
of minnows and such feed, they were never hungry for 
aiiything I could offer. Perhaps they could be tempted 
with a fly. 
But what memories the mention of that old pond bring 
up. Of my chosen friend among my schoolmates — drowned 
at the age of twenty-seven years in the Old Bed at the foot 
of Mt. Tom in sight of his home. Of the big brother 
dearer than any one else on earth, who taught me to fish 
and to draw the chickadees to feed from my hand of a 
winter's day, when working in the timber; and to find 
the earliest arbutus in the spring — but long since cut down 
in the strength of his manhood. Of still older brothers, on 
whose grave for many years has been laid the flowers 
that mark the soldier's last resting place; and of many 
others not so dear but of pleasant memory. I have felt 
the tug of the fighting bass and rushing trout, and even 
wet a^line in the Sound off Fisher's Island; but for pure 
fun o' fishing, give me back my boyhood, a rainy day, 
those old companions, and the pond with its store of 
shiners, sunfish (or "punkin seeds," as we called them), 
Its bullheads, eels and above all its pickerel. And so far 
as fishing is concerned, the world mav wag its way, but I 
will stay by the old pond. 
There was a long row of boys in the home; but the 
mother— although, as I afterward found out, while worry- 
ing about us as only mothers do — coming of the old 
pioneer stock, and so knowing the restless blood that run 
m our veins, when the rainy day came, and with it the 
request that we luight go fishing, seldom said no ; and so 
the tribe, barefoot but dressed in warm woolen clothing, 
with long pine poles and lines to match, and a big box of 
worms for bait for the lesser fish, would start off; and 
stopping to pick up some frogs for pickerel bait as we went 
along, we would reach the pond. Across one branch of 
It was a causeway for the road for the log .teams. On 
each side of this the water was deep and black ; and here 
'most of the fishing was done. But along the edges of the 
pond were a few places where the pickerel grass grew; 
and so putting on a coarse hook and baiting with frog, the 
lure would be sent out along the edge of the grass and 
"skittered" along the surface of the water. Three times 
was the rule to go over each place, and then if there was 
no response to move on. But often the V-shaped ripple 
would tell of the coming of the fish ; theti a glimpse of the 
white, up-turned belly as the bait was taken; a moment 
of intense suspense would follow; then the sharp jerk, 
and the fish would be flopping on the bank and a proudi 
happy boy would cut a forked stick and string his prize. 
Can anything now give such pure unalloyed delight as 
were such moments? 
When we had gone over the pickerel water, we would 
change to a smaller hook, wind a bit of lead hammered 
thm around the line for sinker, put on a cork for float and 
a worm for bait, and go to still-fishing. The rain drops 
would gently make little circles and bubbles on the surface 
of the quiet pond, and just as gently wet us to the skin; 
and the road would change to mud and stickiness ; but we 
were . fishing, and so cared for none of these 
things. How eagerly we would watch those float- 
ing bits of cork until the bite came, and then 
with what fierce joy the struggling captive would 
be sent out on to the land; and what bitter disappoint- 
ment followed when, as sometimes happened (and they 
were always big ones), a fish was sent into the water on 
the other side of the causeway. But the moments and 
hours would slip by all too fast ; and wet and hungry we 
would go to home and supper. But whether successful 
or not. it was never to fault-finding nor even to be made 
fun of; for if unsuccessful the mother would only say 
"Well, you have had your walk anyway," and I realize 
now how much that meant. After my big brother left 
home, with what joyful anticipation I would look forward 
to his occasional return. The memory of one Fourth of 
July comes as 1 write. On the pond there was a raft made 
of slabs from the sawlogs, big enough and solid enough 
for an army pontoon. We took this and poled it about 
next the shores of the pond to places inaccessible from 
land, and I watched him as he pulled in the great pickerel. 
What cared I for oration, picnic, election cake or lemon- 
ade? I was with my brother, and a-fishing — and that was 
enough. But now I must walk alone, and the way has 
been darkened always since his death. 
Pine Tkee, 
Changing Ways. 
San Francisco, Cal., June 22.— Editor Forest and 
Stream: I have just been reading the last number of 
Forest and Stream by the waning twilight, smoking my 
first pipe, which has also waned and needs refilling. 
Settling down in my "easy chair, my mind wanders 
back to my boyhood days, when I was wont to look al' 
my father's two good old guns resting on the rack, made 
of two pairs of branching buclc horns, trophies of his 
shooting days, and wonder if the day would ever come 
when I would become the proud possessor of a gun 
all my own. 
Boys in those days never were given watches and 
guns when barely in their teens, as now. I see young 
gentlemen of twelve and fourteen togged out with double 
barrels, cartridge behs ^and all the paraphernalia of old 
sportsmen; nor did boys have an allowance of pocket 
money to an amount we Boys never dreamed of possess- 
ing. 
It was the height of our ambition to be able to scratch 
together enough to make sure of sufficient for entrance 
money by selling melons and gingerbread on "General 
Training Day" (the annual militia muster) to g-ain ad- 
mittance to the circus, that came through our village 
periodically. 
What old boy does not remember "June Titus and 
Angevme s' grand circus and menagerie, that made its 
annual rounds of the country, and to which we boys 
looked forward as the great event of the year? And 
when the advance agent came to town and posted up 
those famous displays of wonderful horses and ferocious 
hons^ and tigers chasing fleeing Africans (one in the 
tigers mouth who was unfortunate in being a poor 
sprinter, and was being taken in and done for), how we 
spent hours m staring at these illustrations, with open- 
mouthed wonder, and on going to bed dreamed of being 
tossed by huge elephants and chewed up by roaring 
lions and tigers until in our efforts to escape we found 
ourselves on die floor, arousing the household by an 
imearthly yell. There is none of that sort of thing for 
the boys of these days. They are all too precocious. Even 
the Santa Claus legend don't go any more. 1 asked a ma- 
ture young gentlman of six the day before last Christmas 
if he was going to hang up his stocking, whereupon his 
nose turned up with scorn, he replying, "Oh, that old gag 
don t go. How is Santa Claus to come down a narrow 
chimney flue with that pacl< on his back? Besides there's 
no such fellow as Santa Claus, anyhow. Thkt yarn 
will do for kids and babies, but it don't fool me." 
Here was this precocious youth of six already blase, and 
prepared to argue the case with his grandfather, and 
refute all the delightful legends of our childhood. 1 
once fell m with a book called "The Myths of the Middle 
Ages, wherein the author proceeds , to utterly demolish 
the story of William Tell, Pope Joan, etc. He proves 
that the story of William Tell is claimed by every' 
country on the face of the globe; that Pope Joan was 
not a woman— m fact never existed; and so he goes on 
to knock spots out of the whole category of those won- 
derful characters in which we believed, as true as Gospel 
Now, what should be done with such an iconoclast? It 
would give me great pleasure to knock him on the head 
at sight. Thus to utterly destroy the beliefs of our child- 
hood. 
I have wandered off from what I had in my mind to 
say when I commenced— the reflections that were run- 
ning through It after reading the Forest and Stream 
I was going to ask what there is in the general make- 
up of a man that develops a passion in him to destroy 
ite wantonly often, and call it sport, the disposition to 
kill something. Do we ever stop to ask ourselves what 
sporting really is? Is it not cruetly? Do we inherit 
this passion from our savage ancestors? A man goes 
out and shoots birds and animals, and returns in great 
glee if successful. Does he give a thought to the 
wounded game that drags itself off to die in agony? 
ihere is a sad side to the business, one the sportsman 
does not see. If thought was given to the poor wounded 
birds and the suffering he has given, would it not detract 
greatly from his pleasure? For the true sportsman is 
humane and naturally merciful, but he doesn't stop to 
tliink of the misery and suffering he inflicts when he 
wounds an escaping bird that falls in the bush to die a 
lingering death. 
I have been thinking a good deal over this question 
.superinduced by reading the stories in the Forest and 
M'REAM of the killing of deer, birds and other game re- 
lated with so much glee and satisfaction. Some people 
will say that all were created for man's uses. How do 
we know that? I grant you that possibly for his neces- 
sities, tor food; but how many sportsmen who go after 
birds and beasts are impelled to do so by necessity? No- 
it IS that wanton passion to kill something. If they only 
confined themselves to animals that are enemies to man 
they are to be applauded, but such are scarce 
I find that this aversion to killing is growing as I 
get older, and the sportsman's interest assumes a milder 
torm. 1 go out less, and when I do I avoid the risk of 
wounding my game. If I am not sure of it I do not 
shoot. 
On one occasion I came across a wounded deer slowly 
dying. As I approached, it turned its large mournful 
eyes upon me with an expression of mute agony which 
fid, plainly. "What have I done to deserve this cruel 
deed.'' ihose reproachful eyes haunted me for days and 
i have never pulled a trigger on a deer since, a'nd I 
iiave had them nearly run over me. 
_ As evidence that I am not alone in my views I met 
m the street a few days since an acquaintance 'who n 
