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When we reached a flat piece of ground, the water would become quiet and the manners of the fish more humane, so that they would come out like chubs. I stood in one spot under a tree, and took twenty-nine in succession. My sister, looking over these memoirs, suggests that they probably were chubs; but Hartman, who was behind me then, came up and saw them, so I have his evidence.
"They ate the sardines out of the tin before Uncle Stote got in off the pond, and put in raw chubs they'd been using for live bait. Uncle Stote ate 'em all. 'Boys, your ile is all right, said he, when he cleaned 'em out, 'but it seems to me your leetle fish is a mite underdone. But Luke will eat anything you hand him after this, Vard."
Let's go back to the banks of our beloved river, you and I and get up early in the morning and run to the riffles near the old cooper-shop and catch a bucket of shiners and chubs, and then hurry on to Boomer's dam or 'way upstream above the Island where we used to have the Sunday-school picnics or, maybe just stay at the in-town dam near the flour mills and the saw-mills where old Shoemaker Schmidt used to catch so many big ones fat, yellow pike and broad black-bass.
But a few miles from the city here, and on the sloping banks of the stream noted more for its plenitude of "chubs" and "shiners" than the gamier two-and four-pound bass for which, in season, so many credulous anglers flock and lie in wait, stands a country residence, so convenient to the stream, and so inviting in its pleasant exterior and comfortable surroundings barn, dairy, and spring-house that the weary, sunburnt, and disheartened fisherman, out from the dusty town for a day of recreation, is often wont to seek its hospitality.
After breakfast R.C. and I got out our tackles and rigged up fly rods, and sallied forth to the lake with the same eagerness we had felt when we were boys going after chubs and sunfish. The lake glistened green in the sunlight and it lay like a gem at the foot of the magnificent black slopes. The water was full of little floating particles that Teague called wild rice.
"That is as good as a picture!" cried Dame Brinker, halting in admiration of the group. "Many a painting have I seen at the grand house at Heidelberg not a whit prettier. My two are rough chubs, Annie, but YOU look like a fairy." "Do I?" laughed Annie, sparkling with animation. "Well, then, Gretel and Hans, imagine I'm your godmother just paying you a visit. Now I'll grant you each a wish.
He was, however, found some days afterwards; but, as the newspapers say, and as may well be imagined, the vital spark was extinct; and, moreover, the eels and chubs had eaten off his nose and a portion of his chubby face, so that, as my father said, "he was of no use to nobody." The morning after the accident my father was up early, and had missed poor little Joe.
Says I, "I can't reccomend the huntin' so much; there haint nothin' more excitin' to shoot than red squirrels and chipmunks: but there is quite good fishin' in the creek back of our house; they ketched 4 horned Asa's there last week, and lots of chubs." He smiled real agreable, and said, "when he visited Jonesville, he wouldn't fail to take tea with me."
I am forever at the heels of the fishermen, promising them double and treble the value of the fish I want, but they all tell me they catch nothing except pike. I have been to Cudrefin for lampreys, but found nothing. I went to Sauge, no eels, no anything but perch and a few little cat-fish. Two mortal Sundays did I spend, rod in hand, trying to catch bream, chubs, etc.
Sitting there in the evenings, Adam was the talker: such a fund of anecdote he had! Jinny never could hear the same story too often. To-night there was a bit of a sigh in them: his heart was tender: about the Christmases at home, when he and Nelly were little chubs together, and hung up their stockings regularly every Christmas eve. "Twins, Nelly an' me was, oldest of all.
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