A BOY AND HIS DAD

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Walton's stuff I often toil; I study up the works of Hoyle, to see just what I ought to buy, what kind of bait, what sort of fly. My reel and sinkers and my line imported are, and vastly fine. I bought my raiment at a shop where sporting vestments are on top. And so I sit and fish and fish, and think of what a princely dish we'll have at home when I return, with all the troutlets in the burn. But when at last I homeward go, I have no speckled trout to show. I have a grouch, a temper sore, my costly rig, and nothing more. And meantime Johnson's freckled lad goes toiling homeward to his dad all burdened with a string of trout that weighs a ton, or thereabout. He caught them with a pole of pine to which was tied a cotton line. In agony my voice I lift, and ask you whither do we drift? There's something wrong with congress, sirs, when anything like this occurs.

Copyrighted by George Matthew Adams, 1919.

-Walt Mason.

A BOY AND HIS DAD

A boy and his dad on a fishing-trip-
There is a glorious fellowship!
Father and son and the open sky
And the white clouds lazily drifting by,
And the laughing stream as it runs along
With the clicking reel like a martial song,
And the father teaching the youngster gay
How to land a fish in the sportsman's way.

I fancy I hear them talking there
In an open boat, and the speech is fair;
And the boy is learning the ways of men
From the finest man in his youthful ken.
Kings, to the youngster, cannot compare
With the gentle father who's with him there.
And the greatest mind of the human race
Not for a minute could take his place.

Which is happier, man or boy?

The soul of the father is steeped in joy,
For he's finding out, to his heart's delight,
That his son is fit for the future fight.
He is learning the glorious depths of him,
And the thoughts he thinks and his every whim,
And he shall discover, when night comes on,
How close he has grown to his little son.

A boy and his dad on a fishing-trip-
Oh, I envy them, as I see them there
Under the sky in the open air,

For out of the old, old long-ago

Come the summer days that I used to know,
When I learned life's truths from my father's lips
As I shared the joy of his fishing-trips-

Builders of life's companionships!

-Edgar A. Guest.

From "When Day is Done." Copyrighted by and permission from Reilly

& Lee Co.

MEMORY OF THE HALIBUT

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TO THE IMMORTAL MEMORY OF THE HALI-
BUT ON WHICH I DINED THIS DAY

Where hast thou floated, in what seas pursued
Thy pastime? when wast thou an egg new-spawned,
Lost in th' immensity of ocean's waste?

Roar as they might, the overbearing winds

That rocked the deep, thy cradle, thou wast safe-
And in thy minikin and embryo state,
Attached to the firm leaf of some salt weed,

Didst outlive tempests, such as wrung and racked
The joints of many a stout and gallant bark,
And whelmed them in the unexplored abyss.
Indebted to no magnet and no chart,
Nor under guidance of the polar fire,
Thou wast a voyager on many coasts,
Grazing at large in meadows submarine,
Where flat Batavia just emerging peeps
Above the brine,-where Caledonia's rocks
Beat back the surge,-and where Hibernia shoots
Her wondrous causeway far into the main.
-Wherever thou hast fed, thou little thought'st,
And I not more, that I should feed on thee.
Peace therefore, and good health, and much good fish,
To him who sent thee! and success, as oft

As it descends into the billowy gulf,

To the same drag that caught thee! Fare thee well! Thy lot thy brethren of the slimy fin

Would envy, could they know that thou wast doomed To feed a bard, and to be praised in verse.

-William Cowper.

WHEN JENNY COME ALONG

Fishin' in the river, an' Jenny come along,
Apern full of flowers, an' singin' of a song;
"Shame to ketch them fishes-cruel 'tis an' wrong!"
That wuz what she tol' me-when Jenny come along.

Fishin' pole wuz noddin'-fish a-pullin' strong;
Never had sich luck as that, when Jenny come along;
Knowed she wuz a-comin', by the blossoms roun' the
place;

Water, like a lookin'-glass, showin' of her face.

Wound up that 'ere tackle-let the fishin' go:

Walked with her through meadows, with daisies white

as snow;

Wind a-blowin' in my face the bright locks round her

brow

Never did like fishin' in a river, anyhow!

Permission of "Forest and Stream."

-Frank L. Stanton.

FISH STORIES

What do the little fishes do

That make most truthful men untrue,
Whose word in all's as good as gold
Until a fishing tale is told?

A five-inch fish my friend pulled out-
His monstrous catch" he talked about.
To give its size-oh wondrous charm!—
He measured off full half his arm.

SALMON

It was a most elastic fish,

Would stretch as far as he could wish.
Each time he told the fable o'er
The fish elongated the more.

A crowd drew round to hear the tale;
It last became a little whale.

Its length he showed in all his pride—
His arms extended clear out wide!

Must he now give account for lies
Like these, somewhere beyond the skies?
Or will Saint Peter wink his eye,

And understand, and let him by?

-Joseph Morris.

SALMON

I

The fish are in the river

Where it cuts the greening hills;
And the murmur of the water
With its precious secret thrills.
The call to nature's dearest
Goes forth throughout the land—
"Get your rod and tackle ready
For the salmon are on hand."

II

The pool is hoarding treasure
Where the rapid fails to slack.
See the swirl upon the water!
There a big one showed his back.

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