Days in the Open. Lathan A. Crandall
II. THE TWO BOYS
E may safely interpret a lowery day in haying time as a providential hint to go fishing. It did not require a strong hint of this kind to move grandfather, especially when the boy was around; for he not only loved to fish but he loved the boy who loved to fish, and was always planning something for his pleasure.
Why not stop for a moment just here to consider what sort of a grandfather a boy should have? Of course he must have white hair and a kindly face, but these are comparatively unimportant parts of his outfit. It is the disposition that counts. He must not have nerves. The peppery, irascible, impatient man, who growls and sputters on the least provocation, should never set up in business as a grandfather. In order to highest excellence he should keep the boy-spirit through all the experiences of life. The man who has entirely ceased to be a boy is disqualified.
This particular grandsire filled the bill completely. He never scolded, and never even grew tired of answering questions. When the little lad had reached the sled age, the cunning hands of his grandfather built him one that could easily distance all competitors. When skates had become an obsession, it was the same benefactor who invested his hard-earned money in the most wonderful pair that the boy had ever seen, and surreptitiously taught him to use them before the anxious mother knew anything about it. But the crowning day among all the many that these two spent together was that upon which the older boy taught the younger how to use a gun. The gun was a family heirloom, and tradition said that it had done duty in the Revolutionary War. The old flint lock had been removed and a percussion lock substituted; but the hammer refused to stay cocked. When it was fired, whatever might be the result to the object fired at, no uncertainty could be felt about the consequences to the firer; he was kicked certainly, promptly, and vigorously.
On an historic morning in the winter, when the grandfather was going into the woods to chop, he took the boy’s breath away by saying, “If you want to go with me to-day and take along the old shotgun, you may, possibly, shoot a squirrel.”
Will he go? If any boy reads these lines, let him answer. Gun over shoulder, and heart filled with infinite happiness, the boy trudges along the road, through the fields, and into the woods on the hillside, pouring forth a steady flow of talk. When the big beech, which the grandfather is turning into fire-wood, is reached, a council of war is held. Directions are given as to the proper way of handling a gun, and especially this one. “You’ll have to hold the hammer back with your thumb, and when you have taken good aim, let go.” Over and over again it is impressed upon the boy that under no circumstances is he to point the muzzle of the gun toward him.
While instructions are going on, a harsh call sounds from among the distant trees. The boy does not need to be told that it is the cry of the grey-squirrel, and with all the speed that caution will permit he hurries in the direction of the hidden challenger. Every now and then he stops to await a renewal of the cry, and then on again. Now the call is very near, almost directly overhead. Evidently it comes from somewhere high up in that great maple. For moments that seem hours he peers here and there among the leafless branches. At last the flirt of a grey tail catches his eye, and there, stretched along a limb near the top of the trees, lies the quarry. Up goes the long-barrelled gun, but the muzzle refuses to hold still. It describes circles and rectangles and zigzags, but persistently avoids the squirrel. Possibly it is too heavy for the slight muscles. Certainly the boy’s heart is beating a tattoo, and a severe attack of “squirrel fever” has him in its grip. Just as despair is completely overwhelming the lad, he sees a big log near by, and loses no time in getting behind it, with the gun resting upon it and pointing toward the tree-top. With this rest it is possible to keep the contraptious old gun still for a minute. Carefully he pulls back the hammer, takes a long sight over the barrel, and lets go. Have the heavens fallen and has the world come to an end? The gun bellows, and the boy turns a back-somersault in the snow, vaguely fancying that the entire universe has struck him. The squirrel is forgotten for a moment in the surprise caused by the back-action of the gun. But it is only for a moment, and then digging the snow out of his eyes, the boy peers anxiously up at the limb just occupied by the squirrel. It is empty. Has he missed him? Just when humiliation begins to creep into his heart he sees a grey heap on the snow, and sorrow turns to joy.
With gun over his shoulder and the squirrel hidden behind him, he takes the back trail, and soon rejoins the chopper. “I heard the gun go off,” says the old boy. “What did you shoot at?”
“A grey squirrel,” is the answer. “Missed him, eh?” This is the moment of supreme happiness, as the concealed game is brought to the front and the boy cries, “Missed him, did I? What do you think of that?” What amazement, simulated or real, appears on the older face! His surprise even surpasses the boy’s expectation. “Well! Well! If that isn’t a big one, and you killed him all by yourself! I’ll take his hide off when we get home and you shall have him for supper.”
It is more than probable that some dear people, if they have the patience to read thus far, will lay down the book in disgust, saying, “Cruel! Cruel! Boys should be taught never to take life unnecessarily.” The writer accepts their censure with all meekness, and assures them of his hearty sympathy. But he is writing of the boy in the open, the out-of-doors boy, the real boy, not of a becurled and anæmic male child, coddled and restrained and tutored until he is no more than a little manikin. And writing of the real boy as he has been, is, and evermore will be, it must be set down in all honesty that he loves the hunt.
But we have wandered a long way from that lowery day when grandfather said, “Boy, I can’t work in the hay-field today; what do you say to going over to the river fishing?” Now the boy had spent innumerable hours on the creek that flowed past the old farm-house, and had sought acquaintance with the bull-heads and horndace and eels for a mile in either direction, but the river he had fished only in his dreams. He had seen huge pickerel and giant perch which neighbours had exhibited as spoils from this wonderful stream, and in night visions he had walked along its banks and pulled out fish of enormous size and brilliant colouring. Now his dreams were to come true.
In the same valley with the river, and before it was reached, was the canal. Just below a lock, where the water looked to be infinitely deep to the boy, the grandfather stopped and said, “We will try it here for a while.” Nothing happened except that after feeling a tug at his line the boy pulled it in minus a hook. “Probably a turtle,” explains the elder: “Let’s go on to the river.” A quarter of a mile farther on and the shining river is reached, just where a dam had been many years before. Some of the logs remained, reaching out over the water, and upon these the two boys seated themselves and began to fish. Memory has failed to record all the incidents of that eventful day, but it has engraved the picture of the long string of fish which they carried home that night. The record is probably not any more accurate than some of which we read now-a-days, for it declares that this string was something over six feet long, and weighed at least a thousand pounds!
One experience of that day will not allow itself to be forgotten. The boy hooked a fish that put up an exceptionally vigorous fight, but was finally brought in. After it had been unhooked and was being exultantly inspected by the younger and exhibited for the admiration of the older boy, it gave a sudden wriggle, slipped through the hands of its captor, and fell back into the river. Woe of woes! For the time, life was not worth living. The biggest fish he had ever caught had gotten away! In spite of the most heroic efforts his chin began to quiver and then came a burst of tears. “Never mind,” said the older boy, “you’ll catch another just as good.”
That day and that particular event came back with startling distinctness more than thirty years later, and on the banks of the far-famed Nepigon. The boy had long since come to be a man, and was camped with two congenial friends at the lower end of “Pine Portage.” There had been long days of ideal trout-fishing and nights filled with refreshing