202 
FOREST AND STREAM 
Aug. 16, 1913 
Reuben Wood 
My First Fish—(“Men I Have Fished With”) 
T HIS noted sportsman, who for nearly half 
a century made his home in Syracuse, N. 
Y., was well known throughout the State, 
and it was my good fortune to have him as an 
instructor in the art of angling in earliest boy¬ 
hood. We were born in the then small village 
of Greenbush (opposite Albany), he in Decem¬ 
ber, 1822, and I eleven years later. 
Almost every man who has passed the half- 
century milestone on life’s journey loves to 
imitate Lot’s wife and look over his shoulder, 
and usually the retrospect is pleasant because we 
do not remember clearly; we conjure up the 
roses in the pathway, and the small thorns are 
indistinct in the distance; a faint humming of 
the bees whose honey we stole brings no re¬ 
membrance of the penalty paid for it; the wound 
of the sting is cured by the honey—in memory, 
at least. Poor indeed is the man of fifty who 
has no wealth of retrospect and who thinks the 
punishment of Lot’s wife was fitted to the 
crime! It was cruelly unjust, and in compen¬ 
sation at this late day she should be sainted 
perhaps with the name and title of Saint Salina. 
Here I pause to ask if there is really any such 
thing as an occult cerebration which caused my 
pen to turn to thoughts of Lot’s wife while 
writing an apology for looking back at the boy¬ 
hood of a citizen of Syracuse, N. Y., the great 
salt-producing city of the State? 
There are men who never could have been 
boys—engaged in boyish sports and had a boy's 
thoughts. Every one has known such men. 
Men who must have been at least fifty years 
old when they were born—if that event ever 
happened to them—and have no sort of sym¬ 
pathy for a boy nor his ways; crusty old cur¬ 
mudgeons who never burned their fingers with 
a firecracker or played hookey from school to 
go a-fishing. They may be very endurable in a 
business way, but are of no possible use as 
fishing companions. I speak by the card, for 
I’ve been in the woods with them. 
Reuben Wood was a boy, and was one to 
me as long as he lived. We were boys together, 
he being a big boy when I was but a little one; 
he was at our house a great deal, and is among 
the earliest of memories. He was “Reub” all 
through life to all his familiars, and they were 
many. 
It was a summer day, and I was some six 
or eight summers old, when Reub came down 
the street with some fish that he had caught in 
a stream then the northern boundary of the 
village, but now in it and fishless. After much 
solicitation he agreed to let me in the party 
next day—Bruin and me. Now, Bruin was a 
big Newfoundland dog belonging to my father 
which Reub had taught to pick me up whenever 
he said, “Bruin, go fetch Fred,” no matter 
what screams, kicks and protests his burden 
made, and this was one of Reub’s jokes which I 
failed to appreciate. We started, Bruin and I, in 
high glee. Reub cut some poles, rigged the 
By FRED MATHER 
(From issue of July 11, 1896.) 
lines, floats and hooks and put on the worms, 
and he soon had a perch, a monster it seemed 
then and does yet, while the sunfish that tried 
to run away with my float and which Reub 
helped to land probably weighed more than the 
grocer’s scales could tell; it must have been as 
big as ioo modern ones, and Reub said “it was 
as big as a piece of chalk.” Such was my first 
experience in angling, as clear in memory as if 
only a week ago. 
A little pond turtle stuck his head up near 
the float, looked at it and us, and paddled to the 
bottom in the funniest way. Reub called it a 
FRED MATHER. 
“skillypot,” but he had funny names for every¬ 
thing. Then I caught a perch, actually bigger 
than the sunfish, and a new world seemed to 
open; but the- spines of the fish cut my hand 
and the world was not so bright. Five fish 
came to my lot in all, but Reub had about twenty 
—some perch, sunfish, two bullheads and an eel. 
He said that I let the fish eat the worms off. I 
saw a turtle climb on a log while Reub was up 
the bank after more worms, and I went out on 
the log to get it, but the turtle slid into the 
water, and so did I. A scream brought Reub, 
who whistled for Bruin and ordered him to 
“Fetch Fred,” and he did. Oh, the dripping of 
clothes and the splashing of shoes as we went 
home, and the fearful tale of a turtle who 
wouldn’t wait to be caught! This last seemed 
the greatest cause of grief and afforded Reub 
and other boys a text for teasing, which they 
worked to an annoying extent, and it was long 
before he would take me fishing again, saying, 
“No, you’ll go diving for turtles.” This oc¬ 
curred about 1840, and Reub referred to it the 
last time I saw him, in 1883. 
At this time Greenbush was a very quaint 
little village on the upper Hudson, whose con¬ 
nection with the outside world was by the 
Albany stage to Boston and by ferry to Albany. 
No railroad entered it, and in fact the only one 
at that time in the whole State of New York 
ran from Albany to Schenectady, and hauled its 
cars to the top of the hill by a stationary engine 
before hooking on the light locomotive. The 
place was favorable for the development of 
character, unhampered by the conventionalities 
which come from contact with outside people, 
and Reuben grew to manhood there and re¬ 
tained a quaint simplicity all his life, a rugged, 
honest nature, whom it was refreshing to know, 
and was a lovable man to meet. If, as a boy, he 
ever indulged in forays on the fruit and melon 
patches of the farmers, the fact is unknown to 
me. That I did is certain, but the disparity of 
years forbade comradeship in such nocturnal 
pleasures. He was large, strong and heavy of 
movement, with a deep chest voice, even when 
a boy, that was remarkable. His brother Ira, 
nearer my age, resembled him in this and other 
particulars, and in both there was an air of 
honesty and truthfulness, not so frequent in 
boys, which was fully borne out in their char¬ 
acters as men. 
In after years I had a joke on Reub which 
was originally on me as a boy, but later knowl¬ 
edge reversed it. With some other boys I had 
been fishing away up the hill in the pond of the 
locally famous “red mill,” and had seen a pair 
of wood ducks alight upon a tree. We some¬ 
how knew that they were wild ducks, but had 
no idea that the term included more than one 
kind, for at that day we only knew one sort of 
tame ducks. To see a duck alight on a tree 
was strange, and I told Reub of it; and he 
spread the incredible story, for he knew nothing 
of wood ducks, and the laugh was on me. 
“Seen any ducks lightin’ on trees lately?” was 
a common and annoying salutation, and years 
later the question was turned on Reub. I fished 
with him many times as a boy, never after he 
left Greenbush for Syracuse, in 1852; but we met 
occasionally after 1876, when thrown together 
at fairs and fly-casting tournaments, and he 
seemed to be the same boy that somehow had 
gray hair. 
The picture of him gives an excellent idea 
of his manly face, but the cigar I do not recog¬ 
nize. This is not remarkable, because he used 
from a dozen to twenty each day, and there are 
people who might not recognize his picture 
without a cigar of some kind. The badge upon 
his corduroy coat is a certificate that he is a 
member of the Onondaga Fishing Club, ot 
Syracuse, which was always represented at the 
