102 
he’s almost fourteen. He needs you and 
your loving comradeship now more than 
he ever will in all the remaining days 
of his life. You may not realize it, but 
there is a great gulf between you—and 
it hurts me. 
“The boy is losing something which is 
precious to all boys. He has reached 
an age where he wants to be taken into 
your confidence, made a chum of, a 
companion. He wants to come to you 
with his little troubles, his problems. He 
wants to think that YOU think him of 
some importance in the world. He thrills 
with happiness at your slightest word 
of praise. Thoughtlessly you have al¬ 
lowed yourself to become too preoccu¬ 
pied with business. And when you come 
home at night you are too tired to give 
him much of your time. The days and 
years arc lengthening. And he is ready 
to fly from the nest. You can save him 
—bring him back—fill a very large void 
in his heart, if you will make him more 
of a chum—look on him as a man, in 
embryo, needing and wanting you.’ 
I recall distinctly that a cataclysm 
crashed tempestuously over my head. 
The neglect and the self-sufficient arro¬ 
gance of ages were pictured in that one 
moment of kindly reproach. I was 
ashamed! 
Yet it had developed insidiously. As 
fathers go I am not so bad. My heart 
is in the right place. I loved the boy 
but I had not taken the trouble to show 
it in the little ways which count. And 
the knowledge of my mistake came with 
accumulative power. I was guilty and 
had no excuse. The very thought of 
losing him—of having him cross beyond 
the last line produced poignant humilia¬ 
tion, grief. 
And at that same moment I made a 
resolution! 
From that hour on, Sonny-Boy would 
be my “pal.” I would dedicate every 
spare opportunity to proving I was 
worthy of him. We would hunt to¬ 
gether, and fish together, run up to the 
Pennsylvania hill's, near Milford, in the 
deer season, and bring back a buck. We 
would pitch our tent on Bantam Lake, 
as soon as the first crisp Spring morn¬ 
ings arrived, and inhale the rasher of 
bacon under those wide-spreading elms 
and oaks. The place to win him back 
was in the big outdoors. I had always 
loved it. He inherited the same keen 
longings. 
There—you have my moral! It’s 
over with. We’ll have no more of it; 
but the confession was necessary for the 
true purposes of my story. In this 
generation I am afraid my case has its 
Forest and Stream 
parallels. Comradeship between father 
and son is a very beautiful and a very 
necessary thing. If our adventures 
bring one father nearer to his boy, I 
shall feel repaid for setting down these 
chapters. It is not such a stupidly senti¬ 
mental thought at that. I won’t hedge. 
I'll stick by my guns, moralizing—or no. 
To take a growing boy and to teach 
him the rudiments of true sportsmanship 
is a more exhilarating experience than 
many men ever know. It has all the 
fascination of big-game hunting. It 
jazzes drowsy sensibilities. It gingers 
up the chap who had forgotten how to 
be thrilled. Our pedigreed sportsmen of 
Tomorrow must inevitably be the sons 
of Today! Think that over. And it 
will be a better world if every man’s son 
or sons learns a profoundly deep and 
tender appreciation of sportsmanship— 
of fair-running waters and places high in 
the hills. We need have no rigid game 
laws, fewer wardens, less nagging, less 
slaughter, if the younger generation 
STARTS RIGHT. 
And so, it is to this ideal, this cause, 
these little stories are -reverently dedi¬ 
cated. They required the foreword. 
Something of the bond which existed 
between the two of us—Dad and the 
Boy—would have been lost, had this pro¬ 
logue been omitted. 
T HREE weeks following that grim, 
hurt hour in my library, mother 
bade us God-speed as we turned 
our steps Floridaward on the first 
of our adventures in Comradeship. 
There was the light of supreme happi¬ 
ness in her eyes. 
* * * * 
Our destination was Miami. We left 
New York with snow piled on our over¬ 
coats. A few days later we stepped into 
sunshine and tropic contentment. And 
the following day we met up with 
Cap’n. Jim Medders of the good ship 
“Lucretia.” 
Sonny-Boy wanted to fish. That was 
his first craving. It had always been 
denied him. He had never gone with 
me on any of my trips. I had never 
thought of him in that connection. He 
knew nothing of the technique of the 
sport, and I suddenly realized that along 
in here lay one of my most joyous an¬ 
ticipations. I had a scholar. I may not 
be an expert but I manage fairly well. 
There were alligators thirty miles 
from town up some of the creeks: per¬ 
mission could be secured to shoot limp- 
Father and Sonny Boy, washed clean 
of a great misunderstanding, find a 
miniature Florida island upon which 
there is something more than a day 
of tropic sport. 
— W. Livingston Lamed. 
kin, duck and fowl of many varieties out 
on the ’Glades. Deer and wild-cat and 
'possums were in plenty on some of the 
immense “hammocks” of the Everglade 
country, southward. We would find 
black bass out the Tamiami Trail canal. 
Deep-sea fishing beckoned us from the 
green waters beyond Bulls Island and 
Bears Cut—but Sonny-Boy had an eye 
for romance, and small fish. No, he was 
afraid to start with mangrove snappers 
along the fringes of the numerous little 
isles—Cap’n Jim had said something 
of many gnarled roots and transparent 
gut leaders and the difficulties of keep¬ 
ing hooks clear—he would be content if 
he could just drop a line overboard in 
the Bay somewhere—or, better still, row 
around in some tiny lagoon off an islanc 
and play at fishing to begin with. 
“Treasure Island” coursed in his 
veins. The sight of those majestic keys 
under the soft blue sky, with theii 
plumed crests of palm and their shadow) 
sand beaches, was too good to be true 
At fourteen, he was just a little boy. 1 
could see it now—the youth in hirr 
shone in his wide eyes and in the glow¬ 
ing color of his flushed cheeks at the ven 
thought of adventure. It was all so new 
—so wonderful! 
The “Lucretia,” stocked for a day’s 
cruise, was our Ship O’ Dreams. W< 
chartered her, and Cap’n Jim, aftei 
hearing Sonny-Boy’s timid suggestions 
had just the place in mind. 
Sure, and it was to be “All-the-Fish 
in-the-World Key! ’ What did THAI 
mean? He would not tell us until w< 
had reached the place. Then we conk 
see for ourselves. But he had all neces 
sary lines, bait, and experience on board 
Sonny-Boy could go “fishin’ in ai 
Aquarium!” 
