Nature Holds Subtle Attractions That Neither the Art of Man Can Conceive Nor His Skill Approach. 
When Bill Went A-Fishin’ 
He Certainly had the Time of his Life, and his Recital of the Event Will Make More Than one 
Reader Cast Reflective Visions Along the Backward Course of Years 
By W. H. Bentley. 
ILL was about ten years old 
when he first went fishing, and 
that was back in the early 
seventies. To be sure, he had 
previously caught mud suckers, 
sunfish, bullheads and now and 
then a chub, in the Sandburg 
creek that ran through the 
lower end of the village; but was not pre- 
sumptious enough to consider such sport “real” 
fishing. Indeed, so lacking in pride over what 
he thus caught, was he, that each fish instead of 
forming a unit of a string to be proudly car¬ 
ried home, was promptly broiled on a stick set 
up before a fire of drift wood made up in 
anticipation of just such service. Such repasts 
as Bill and his playmates thus provided for 
themselves, possessed one feature conventionally 
thought essential at more formal functions of 
that nature, viz.: they were served in courses. 
But there the conventionality ceased; for every 
course consisted of the same condiment—fish. 
If Bill yanked a tiny sucker high into the air 
with his heavy, bamboo pole, and flung it at 
the end of the line so far back among the tall 
grass, he at once proceeded to dress, broil and 
eat it, thereby completing the first course. Dur¬ 
ing the several stages of this occupation, his 
playmates divided their time between enviously 
eyeing him, and nervously watching their bobs 
for indications of a like fortunate turn of 
affairs for themselves. 
The second course may have been a sunfish 
or a bullhead, of which a playmate was both 
captor and cook. With dispatch equal to that 
exhibited by Bill, he repeated the operations the 
latter had performed, and in turn received en¬ 
vious attention from the others. Combining as 
each did the functions both of chef and guest, 
no criticisms of the quality of the cooking or of 
the table service, marred the scanty course. 
Fastidiousness was an unknown quality to them 
in those days, and if clumsiness several times 
projected the small, bony morsel from the broil¬ 
ing stick into the ashes from which it was with 
difficulty extracted, there was no complaint be¬ 
cause the viand when ready to be devoured, 
consisted very largely of the inorganic substance 
known as charcoal. 
Thus the meal of many courses was prolonged 
from morning till the sun drew close down to 
the high, pine topped ridges that shut in the 
village on the west. Reluctantly then, the youthful 
fishermen wound the “dobber” bedecked lines 
round the bamboo poles, and turned their 
toughened, bramble-scarred, bare feet toward 
home. Of fish they had eaten plenty in point 
of numbers, though not enough in substance to 
dull the appetite that seemed to increase by what 
it fed upon. In the intervals between the ir¬ 
regular courses, Nature had administered a 
“bracer” of ozone that, acting upon a liver 
and pancreas as yet unmolested by calomel or 
bitters, so stimulated those organs in the exercise 
of their respective functions, that dyspepsia and 
billiousness were reduced to a mere, algebraical 
X; and in the mind of each boy was a more or 
less pleasant anticipation of the evening meal 
still to be served at the family table. 
Bill’s father was a clergyman by profession, 
and by the instinct that appears to characterize 
a large part of the profession, also a fisherman. 
Several times each year he spent a week or 
more dropping flies into the waters of the 
Willowemoc, the branches of the Neversink, or 
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