476 
FOREST AND STREAM 
Oct. ii, 1913. 
Hopkinton’s Specimen Pike. 
Fishing was Hopkinson’s favorite pursuit; 
gossiping upon its delights and arts was his 
one great hobby. Politics, religion, and most 
other things to him were anathema. The only 
Scripture narratives he would discuss were 
Jonah’s adventures among the whales, and the 
bringing to hand of the tribute money which 
was Ciesar’s; beyond these, on all other Biblical 
traditions and pronouncements, he was agnostic. 
Fie hated parsons, and only tolerated the atten¬ 
tions of one the day he got married, “just to 
please the missus”; and he “might and he 
mighn’t send for one before he went to judg¬ 
ment.” 
Hopkins was a shoemaker, and did the best 
work in the snobbing line in Brillport, seeing 
to the understandings of some of the best of 
the inhabitants. The parson, the chief constable, 
the tripe-seller next door, and all and sundry 
patronized him, and many stayed awhile to 
gossip—he did most of the talking, and it was 
sure to be upon the divine topic of casting 
angle. Moreover, they brought him their rods 
to mend, and sought advice on piscine haunts, 
and upon baits, and all the other side issues of 
the noble art of catching fishes. 
He had a nice 16-pound pike, stuffed by 
himself, and cased. He admitted that it was 
narrow in the belly, wrung at the gill covers, 
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and generally a parody on a living beast fresh 
out of its native element. It was sufficient that 
it had been actually caught by him, and gave 
him a good hour’s fun securing it, the telling 
of which story afforded him much delight when¬ 
ever anyone new came to see him, or any old 
visitor would stomach the repetition. 
But that was not his specimen fish. 
“Where is it. then?” I once asked him. 
“Oh,” replied he, “I lost it; the brute 
flopped back into the river the moment after I 
had run my rule over it. It was four foot three 
inches long, and weighed, if I remember right, 
twenty-seven pounds.” 
Now, a friend had been told by him in all 
seriousness a week before that its length was 
given to him as four foot two; while the parson 
assured me that its length, as given to him two 
years before, was exactly four feet. 
“The brute gave me a doing, too,” said 
Hopkins. “He’d been talked of by the village 
folk for years as a shy old cuss as never re¬ 
fused a decent bait, but always either disgorged 
the hooks afore he could be struck aright, or 
he’d snapped the tackle and gone off with the 
best part of the gear, and the bait, of course, 
as well. All the anglers for miles around useter 
come at intervals and fish especially for him in 
a hole agin the bridge buttress. No one ever 
thought of getting him by any other means; I 
verily believe that if they had, and they was 
copt at it, they’d have been chucked in the river. 
All sorts of baits had been tried; roach, dace, 
goldfish, sprats, mice, rats, frogs, young ducks 
(of which he was tremenjus fond), and all sorts 
of mechanical devices. Some he nabbed, the 
others he scorned, according to his humors. We 
was all wild at not being successful. 
“One day, just afore Christmas, when I was 
coming home with some park sausages, I hap¬ 
pened to be looking over the bridge to see if I 
could see my nibbs, skulking below, when out 
from my basket drops a couple of sausages 
plump into the water; when lo! with a, wild 
swirl of the water, up pops ‘Jacob’ (that’s what 
we named him), and nabs both. Thinks I, 
‘They fare to have favored his fancy,’ and I 
drops another for the purpose, when up he 
dashes again, and sausage number 3 was gone. 
“Thinks I again, ‘I’ll bring my tackle and 
some fresh sausages, come Boxing Day, and 
see if that oracle ’ll work.’ So I goes, and, 
would you believe it, I hooked him with the very 
first sausage I throw’d in! Nobody was about, 
so I has the fun all to myself, without critics 
or advisers, which always fare to know better 
how to do things than them as is doing ’em. I 
might say that there was quite an inch of ice 
on the river, and I had first to break a hole in 
it with a pole. I had some rare tussling with 
the brute. Now he'd shoot down stream under 
the ice, and presently he’d come back again as 
if to get wind; then he’d shoot up-stream, 
now he’d lay as if made of lead agin the bottom; 
once or twice he jumped into the air like a 
salmon leaping. Thus for two hours he played 
old gooseberry with me and with the tackle, 
ne’er a once giving me a chance to catch my 
gaff in his gills, or any other handy spot.” 
“Surely in the two hours you had some 
visitors?” I suggested. 
“If I said I hadn’t I should lie!” he replied; 
“but they said as they thought it was no use 
me expecting to land him, and off they went. 
It was a dreadful cold afternoon, and most kept 
at home; besides, the bridge was well above 
the village. Howsomever, just as it got dusk, 
what must he do but fling himself bodily on the 
ice, allowing me to draw him a yard or so 
nearer the shore. Like a fool, I outs with my 
rule to measure him, instead of making sure he 
was all safe. Then he ups (as I was telling 
you) and just hops it like a acrobat, and flop he 
goes in, leaving my bare hooks on the ice, and 
my sausage remaining with him. 
“Wuss luck for me! I made a spring to 
nab him, and crash goes the ice. What happens 
after that I didn't know till I finds myself in 
bed with a touch of rheumatic fever. They 
told me that, being late, the missus comes down 
to the river and sees my head out of the water, 
and my hands fast clasping a ringle sticking 
out of the buttress of the bridge. They thought 
1 had friz to deth, as I was onconshuss, and 
frozen, and stiff. They had to lower the village 
blacksmith over the bridge by a rope, but he 
failed to unclasp my hands; so they had to file 
the ringle through, and bring me away with it 
still grasped in my hands. Then they gradually 
thawed me. It was a near ’un for me, they 
told me.” 
“What about that pike; did you have an¬ 
other try, just for spite?” I asked. 
“No,” said he, “but others did; they tried 
with hooks, they tried with an eel-speer; they 
tried a net; they dropt in dynamite, but beyond 
chipping off a few bricks from the bridge noth¬ 
ing else happened. Jacob was never seen or 
heard of again.” 
“How long was he, did you tell me?” I 
queried. 
“Four foot four!” he answered with em¬ 
phasis. “And really, if he’d kept perfectly still 
while I measured him, I believe he’d have come 
out fully four foot four and a half.” 
Hopkinson fished until one day the Angel 
of Death called round at the house. He felt 
sure his time had come, but to the last his 
friends who came to pray had their supplica¬ 
tions broken in upon by narrations, with varia¬ 
tions, of bygone fishing exploits. He had his 
rods stacked around his bed, and his favorite 
tackle hung on the footrail; and I have since 
heard that in his will he had made provision 
to have much of his gear, and the stuffed pike, 
enclosed in his coffin with him, which was done. 
On Boxing Day, exactly seven years after the 
great event of his life, a—to him—minor one 
came to pass; it was the day of his departure. 
“Fetch Parson Clnibbock,” he gasped, and 
it was not long before that worthy man arrived. 
“Come closer.” whispered Hopkinson; “I 
couldn’t die afore I’d sent for you to ease my 
conscience.” 
“Parson,” whispered the dying man in the 
parson's ear—“parson—the pike! I’m sorry I 
lied—it wasn’t four foot six, nor four foot five— 
it was—it was niglier four foot seven!” Hop¬ 
kinson fell back. He had given his last meas¬ 
urement; his specimen pike had reached its 
limits.—A. H. Patterson in Angler’s News. 
Manufacturers of artificial limbs are seek¬ 
ing substitutes for English willow, used because 
of its combined lightness and strength. It is 
claimed that the Port Orford cedar of the Pa¬ 
cific Coast will prove equally serviceable. 
