SHARING THE EXHILARATING EXPERIENCES OF OUTDOOR SPORT 
WELD FATHER AND SON IN BONDS OF CLOSE INTIMACY—PART II 
By W. LIVINGSTON LARNED 
S ONNYBOY’S first desire was to 
explore his enchanted island and 
the impulse was a natural one. To 
me it was a revelation, an exultant 
thrill . . . this spirit of Boyhood, bud¬ 
ding under the tropic warmth of Soldier 
Key. I was strangely drawn to an 
analysis of the youngster, as he reacted 
to his new environment. Every boy has 
a little of Adventure in his veins. 
Where is the lad who has not con¬ 
structed a crude raft and gone filibuster¬ 
ing, pirate-fashion, on the muddy creek 
or wind-blown lake? 
Amidst the hurly-burly of modern 
civilization, is it not possible that 
fathers forget this instinctive dash of 
the primeval in their sons? Youth has 
its inevitable hours of humdrum. There 
appears to be an inherent thirst in the 
best, as well as the worst of us, for far 
horizons, a palm against a burnished 
sky, and ports o’ peril. Even now I 
never sniff the exotic odors of salt- 
spray, teas and spices, and chests of 
what-not from the other rim of the 
world whose gateway is South street, 
without wanting to climb aboard a 
scrubby old four-master, and leave my 
own petty universe behind. To Boy¬ 
hood, these lures are terribly real. Lit¬ 
tle savages revert to ancestral traits, and 
Captain Kidd is an immortal, whatever 
you may think. 
W E left Cap’n Jim fixing the lines, 
as The “Lucretia,” rocked sooth¬ 
ingly alongside the rickety dock, by tide¬ 
waters of the channel, saucily beaconed 
our sole contact with civilization; and, 
hand-in-hand, strolled over the Captain’s 
All-the-Fish-in-the-World Key. It was 
so tiny we could look across its sandy 
expanse, from any fixed point, and 
glimpse water . . . brilliant, shimmer¬ 
ing opal-green ocean or bay or “cut,” 
through port-holes of palm and man¬ 
grove. 
To Sonnyboy it fulfilled every vivid 
play of imagination. Had he been 
marooned on one of the Marquesas, the 
blood could not have flamed more bril¬ 
liantly in his cheeks: the sparkle of his 
eyes been more genuine. For there were 
little open places along shore, where the 
twisted mangroves fell away, their 
writhing trunks and limbs blown into 
indescribably strange forms by the wind; 
Page 168 
the leaning cocoanut palms threw fan¬ 
tastic shadows, and beaches as white as 
a tablespread, ran down to lazy combers, 
their strength spent one hundred feet 
out from land. 
The shuttered windows and barred 
doors of the little house at the dock, its 
liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii 
Like modern Crusoes we dwell tempo¬ 
rarily on a fairy tropic isle, and go upon 
sundry fishing expeditions to fill our 
larder. The culminating thrill comes 
when the good ship “Sumurun” goes 
on a bar and we teach a lesson in de¬ 
cent sportsmanship. 
..mil.... 
caretaker fortunately gone, could not 
rob us of our sensation of complete and 
colorful isolation. Soldier Key, to a boy 
of fourteen, was a symbol of Robert 
Louis Stevenson’s “Treasure Island.” 
There was the sea, its white line dimly 
seen across the intervening sand bars; 
there was the heady palms, the cocoa- 
nuts scattered on the sand, the con¬ 
sciousness of a deathless wind, always 
blowing, blowing; and a weird absence 
of all conventional sounds. Even the 
deserted wreck of the sponger’s boat on 
the lee shore might have been the 
“Hispaniola,” and every cavern of damp, 
dark leaves and driven seaweed held a 
Long John Silver or a George Merry— 
as for Sonnyboy, reincarnated, he was 
Sonnyboy at the wheel 
none other than Jim Hawkins, to the 
life ! 
We poked under the coral and lime¬ 
stone crags, dragging quaint crustaceans 
into the sunlight; we sat upon an old 
mangrove and watched the breakers as 
they came bravely in from that charging 
line of snowy horsemen to the eastward, 
or, boys together, barefooted, we ran 
a race across the protected beach, Son- 
nyboy’s sturdy little figure silhouetted 
against the tropic sky ! 
Once he came up to me—timidly—a 
look of sudden fear in his eyes. 
“Dad,” he asked, “would you have had 
a better time if you’d left me at home: 
I’m in the way, I guess. Don’t know 
how to fish or anything! Am I— am 1 
a bother ?” 
For the life of me I couldn’t answer 
There was something in my throat thai 
choked me, but I did reach for him 
roughly, bear-fashion, and snuggle hiir 
up and hug him. And he understood 
How much I had missed the last few 
years! 
C AP’N JIM had the rowboat read; 
when we trudged back to the dock 
and was scanning the sky, with the ham 
curved over squinting eyes. 
“Don't know exactly what th’ weathe 
is goin’ to do,” he ruminated, “but W' 
won’t worry about THAT! We cat 
stay on the key over night if necessary 
I’m thinkin’ we might have a tryout a 
the mouth of the channel for smal 
groupers or snappers. They ought fi 
bite just right in a little while, with th 
tide as it is.” 
He was nodding his head and think 
ing—his face a study. Then he con 
tinued: “But it makes me hoppin’ ma« 
when I think of th’ way most of thes 
unsportsmanlike tourists fish in thes 
waters. It’s never a case of how man; 
they want or to what use they can pu 
’em; it’s always HOW MANY, and fi 
hang with waste! It’s th’ curse o 
modern sport—folks don’t seem to hav 
no conscience.” He turned to Sonnyboy 
as his big hands closed over the oar: 
and we eased out from alongside th 
“Lucretia.” “Now you, young jsii 
when you grow up, never act that way 
Be a reg’lar fisherman or hunter. Fee 
sorry fer game the very minute you ki 
it beyond a certain point.” 
