With Rod and Line in Colorado Waters

Lewis France

Lewis B. France

With Rod and Line in Colorado Waters

“Poor drudge of the city! how happy he feels

With the burs on his legs and the grass at his heels;

No Dodger behind, his bandannas to share;

No Constable grumbling: �You must n’t walk there!’”

    – Holmes.

MANY YEARS AGO

Forty years ago – a big slice off the long end of one’s life! A broad river with its low-lying south shore heavily timbered and rich in early summer verdure; a long bridge with a multitude of low stone piers and trestle-work at top; in midstream, two miles away, the black hull and tall masts of a man-o’-war, lying idly; between and beyond, the smooth bosom of the blue expanse dotted with fishing sloops under weather-beaten wings, moving lazily hither and yon; to the north, but invisible save a straggling outer edge of tumble-down houses – a possibility then – now, “they tell me,” a magnificent city; a decayed wharf with no signs of life, and draped in tangled sea-weed that came in with the last tide, the jagged and blackened piles stand brooding over the solemn stillness like melancholy sentinels sorrowing over a dead ambition. The ripple of the waves is a melody and the air is fragrant with a brackish sweetness.

It has been a bright day, and the afternoon shadows are beginning to lengthen. They suggest to some another day’s work nearly finished, another week drawing to a close; Saturday night, home and rest. To others they suggest – well, let that pass. To a little fellow, barefoot, coatless and with a ragged straw hat, who crawls out from one of the center piers of the old bridge, these shadows of the closing May day are ominous, yet his forebodings are not unmixed with the rose-hued pleasure of a day well spent. He did think of that river below him, twenty-five feet deep, but that was an attraction. He did think of the very near future and – but no matter; his thoughts were bright enough as he hauled up after him a string of perch as long as his precious body, and as a fit climax to his magnificent catch, an eel at least two and a half feet long and thick as his captor’s arm. What a struggle he had enjoyed with that eel before he got it to the top of the pier. His hand-line was a hopeless snarl; twice he had come within a hair’s-breadth of going overboard, but the unfortunate eel had succumbed to juvenile activity and zeal. What ten-year-old could boast comparison, as with the day’s trophies over his shoulder he plodded his way home? He felt himself an object of interest and envy to his fellows, and told with condescension, not arrogance, his experience with that eel.

Success will often take an old boy, let alone a young one, off his feet; it sometimes leads to indiscretion and results in worse than failure, and again is the cornerstone of a noble monument. That boy had fished with success off that pier more than once, but had kept his fishpole and had left the evidences of his disobedience at a friendly neighbor’s. This day he marched straight home, fishpole and all. The sable ruler of the kitchen confirmed, upon sight, the lurking apprehension that would not down in spite of triumph.

“Ah, honey! Whar’s you bin dis livelong day? Miss Mary’s gwine to give it to you. We’s been ahuntin’ an’ trapsin’ all ober dis here town, an’ yo’ pa – he was jes’ gwine – .”

But the “ambiguous givings out” of the sable goddess were cut short by the appearance of Miss Mary in person. She was a stately dame in those days, with a wealth of dark hair and with brown eyes that had in them, ah, such a world of love for that barefoot, white-haired urchin. And she had, too, a quiet way of talking that went right into the little fellow’s ears and down about his heart and lingered there. No need to ask him where he had been; she only looked at him and the fish, a serious, yet a loving look withal, took his hand and led him in to the head of the family. Court was at once convened.

“What shall we do with this boy?”

He to whom thi