780 
FOREST AND STREAM 
June 21, 1913 
“I say, Jack, are there any fish in this pond?” 
‘‘Tliere may be, but I should think they were werry 
small, ’cause there was no water in this here pond afore 
that there rain yesterday.” 
had a couple of Intckets of as fine steel-back 
minnows as you would want to look at. With 
fishing tackle, minnows, lunch and other impedi¬ 
menta, we commenced our journey to the creek 
—about half a mile away. Crossing a field to¬ 
ward a bluff under which my friend said the 
first hole was, I noticed him from time to time 
stop and listen. He would throw his hand to 
the back of his ear and strain himself to hear. 
Finally I asked the cause. “I am a leetle hard 
o’ bearin’.” Don’t you hear singin’ now and 
then ?” he asked. I did not, but a little later I 
did. It was a hymn. A couple of lines would 
be sung, and then quiet would reign. As the 
singing was wafted to us on the soft summer 
air, it was, to my ears, beautiful. There were 
the deep, resonant, reverberating bass of the 
male, punctuated with the shrill treble of the 
female, swelling in cadences, in waves of har¬ 
monious sound, making the sweetest music mortal 
ear ever heard—the melody of our Southern 
darkies-—the finest voices in the world. 
We gained the top of the bluff and looked 
down upon a scene that is novel to many, but 
was old to us—a scene that caused my friend 
to swear sibilantly between his teeth and a gleam 
of death intent to come into his eyes. It was a 
colored baptismal, and, as we gazed down upon 
about 200 blacks, swaying their bodies rhyth¬ 
mically to the music they produced, with one old 
sister shouting “Glory, glory, glory, hallyluuyah; 
Amen, Amen, I’se got—I’se got it, I’se got it,” 
my friend looked long and steadily at me. 
“Well,” I said, “Do you want to stay here and 
get religion?” “No!” he almost shouted. “If 
I stay here much longer I’ll kill about a dozen 
of those coons.” “Let’s mosy, then,” I said. 
So we “mosied,” going on down to the next 
hole. This one was a beauty. It was almost 
round, and the dark green water looked cool 
and inviting as we were sweltering with our 
loads and exertions. On the side of the stream 
on which we were, the bank of solid earth was 
about eight feet above the water, the sides run¬ 
ning sheer and straight down. We were in a 
wood lot, but there was much undergrowth and 
brush under the giant beeches. But for a space 
of about a dozen yards, extending back from 
the edge of the bank, it was clear of all obstruc¬ 
tion, with a carpet of blue grass. We seated 
ourselves on the bank of the proscenium of what 
aiterward became a stage, and let our legs dangle 
over the water, after caring for our minnows 
and selecting two nice ones to begin our fishing. 
When we were comfortable, my friend began 
to “soak” me with a dissertation on fishing and 
how to fish. I grew tired of it and engaged my 
mind with the music'a pair of deep bell-mouthed 
hounds were making in the distance and in the 
rear of our position. The sounds they made 
were wafted on the breezes, first far and then 
near, swelling and declining in volume as they 
seemed to go and come. The hounds seemed 
to be on a hot chase after something, and I 
began to speculate on what it was. Watching 
a cork is hard work—pleasant when fish are bit¬ 
ing fast, but irksome when they are not. Which 
would live the longest—a cork watcher or a rock 
breaker? I asked myself, finally mentally plac¬ 
ing my money on the rock breaker. 
The hounds were coming nearer. They 
were in full cry; they were bearing down on 
our position. If they did not turn I would see 
what they were after. I turned to look behind, 
and the racket was so great my friend turned 
also. There was a crashing of brush, a waving 
of small trees, and then the outskirts of the 
undergrowth parted, and the head of a huge old 
boar shot through and into the clearing on 
which we sat. The distance from its border to 
us was about thirty feet. The boar seemed to 
be in a great hurry. He cleared the intervening 
space with great leaps until he had come with¬ 
in less than five feet of us, and then he went 
into the air, rising like an aeroplane over our 
heads, landing in the center of the pool. As he 
went over, I figured his weight to be about 300 
pounds or more. We were in a cul-de-sac, the 
creek being the only outlet. Had we had the 
time, we would not have been able to escape. 
As it was, the action of the hog being so quick, 
we did nothing. We did not have time to get 
excited. 
The hog landed in the center of the pool 
and the impact of his heavy body changed every 
drop of water in that pool to the thinnest of mist. 
For the space of a moment I was looking down 
into the hole at the bare bottom. The mind 
acts very quickly in moments of stress, and mine 
recorded from the eyes the fact that, the only 
fish in the pool now, a hole in the ground, were 
our two minnows. I saw them wallowing and 
wriggling on the hard clay and our corks lay 
flat on the bottom. A moment more and the 
water was coming down on us in sheets, bucket¬ 
fuls, tubfuls, and then the whole pool came with 
a slosh, a deluge, and much of it ran back into 
the pool through our clothing and shoes. I am 
no liar. I can prove this to anyone’s satisfaction 
if he will furnish a hog, a pair of dogs and go 
with me to this pool and let us enact the same 
scene over again. Who says this is not a fair 
proposition? It should at least put all doubt¬ 
ing Thomases to rout. 
We dried our clothes as best we could, built 
a fire and wasted two hours of precious time. 
My friend looked at me and I looked at him. 
Our looks were accusatory. Who was the Jonah? 
“Well,” said I, “what are you going to do 
about it?’’ He glumly shook his head. He was 
“up against it.” “It looks like the ist of October 
to me,” I said. “What do you mean?” said 
he. “That’s moving day, you know, and this is 
moving day with us. We can’t pay the rent. 
We must move. I am glad that hog jumped in 
that pool, though.” 
“Why I” he snapped. 
“Because,” I snapped back, “there were no 
fish in it, and we would have wasted this whole 
day and would not have been any wiser, but for 
that hog.” 
“I fail to follow you.” 
Then I told him about seeing the bottom 
and asked if he had seen any fish in the spray. 
He had not. We moved. 
Our next hole was under a bluff. In making 
a short cut we came to it on the bluff side and 
on top of the bluff. My friend was in advance. 
When the pool came into his view he let go of 
all his impedimenta, and I was startled with the 
rattle and clash of it to the ground. We had 
had so much bad luck our sources of conversa¬ 
tion were dried up. It was the only dry thing 
about us. I came forward and he silently 
pointed, with unconcealed disgust, at the water 
below. There were about 200 head of fat beef 
cattle in the pool. The steers were standing 
from knee deep to almost total submersion. 
Their long tails were flying in every direction. 
They were fighting flies and the mop of hair 
on the ends of their tails was soaking up the 
water, and the flirting of so many caudal appen¬ 
dages made a mist over all. It was the best 
and cheapest irrigating scheme I ever saw. They 
were throwing the water out of the hole faster 
than it could run in. The creek below the hole 
was falling perceptibly. My friend looked at 
me and I looked at him. Move again? Yes. 
But my friend showed very plainly that he 
wanted to “shake me.” He suggested that I stay 
at this hole until he found one that was free to 
the use of fishermen. He would come back for 
me when he had found what he wanted. I am 
independent by nature. 
So he dropped everything but his tackle and 
minnows and strode away. He was rather huffy, 
I thought. I sat down on the out-cropping roots 
of a giant old beech. The thick shade and cool 
breeze was delightful. I lit my pipe and made 
myself comfortable. I thought of my minnows. 
I picked them up, and at the same time noticed 
the one on my hook was still gasping. I picked 
up the pole and made my way down a cut in 
the bluff at the lower end, which led me out on 
a sand bar. Here I submerged the inner tank 
of my minnow bucket in water that was at least 
six inches over the top of it, when the tank 
rested on the bottom. I tied the cord attached 
to it to a root, and then made my way further 
out on the bar to where the pool had its outlet. 
[concluded next week.] 
