Little Rivers [9]
rises, the shrines of the
past are unveiled, and the magical rites of reminiscence begin.
I.
You are fishing down the Swiftwater in the early Spring. In a
shallow pool, which the drought of summer will soon change into dry
land, you see the pale-green shoots of a little plant thrusting
themselves up between the pebbles, and just beginning to overtop
the falling water. You pluck a leaf of it as you turn out of the
stream to find a comfortable place for lunch, and, rolling it
between your fingers to see whether it smells like a good salad for
your bread and cheese, you discover suddenly that it is new mint.
For the rest of that day you are bewitched; you follow a stream
that runs through the country of Auld Lang Syne, and fill your
creel with the recollections of a boy and a rod.
And yet, strangely enough, you cannot recall the boy himself at all
distinctly. There is only the faintest image of him on the endless
roll of films that has been wound through your mental camera: and
in the very spots where his small figure should appear, it seems as
if the pictures were always light-struck. Just a blur, and the dim
outline of a new cap, or a well-beloved jacket with extra pockets,
or a much-hated pair of copper-toed shoes--that is all you can see.
But the people that the boy saw, the companions who helped or
hindered him in his adventures, the sublime and marvellous scenes
among the Catskills and the Adirondacks and the Green Mountains, in
the midst of which he lived and moved and had his summer holidays--
all these stand out sharp and clear, as the "Bab Ballads" say,
"Photographically lined
On the tablets of your mind."
And most vivid do these scenes and people become when the vague and
irrecoverable boy who walks among them carries a rod over his
shoulder, and you detect the soft bulginess of wet fish about his
clothing, and perhaps the tail of a big one emerging from his
pocket. Then it seems almost as if these were things that had
really happened, and of which you yourself were a great part.
The rod was a reward, yet not exactly of merit. It was an
instrument of education in the hand of a father less indiscriminate
than Solomon, who chose to interpret the text in a new way, and
preferred to educate his child by encouraging him in pursuits which
were harmless and wholesome, rather than by chastising him for
practices which would likely enough never have been thought of, if
they had not been forbidden. The boy enjoyed this kind of father
at the time, and later he came to understand, with a grateful
heart, that there is no richer inheritance in all the treasury of
unearned blessings. For, after all, the love, the patience, the
kindly wisdom of a grown man who can enter into the perplexities
and turbulent impulses of a boy's heart, and give him cheerful
companionship, and lead him on by free and joyful ways to know and
choose the things that are pure and lovely and of good report, make
as fair an image as we can find of that loving, patient Wisdom
which must be above us all if any good is to come out of our
childish race.
Now this was the way in which the boy came into possession of his
undreaded rod. He was by nature and heredity one of those
predestined anglers whom Izaak Walton tersely describes as "born
so." His earliest passion was fishing. His favourite passage in
Holy Writ was that place where Simon Peter throws a line into the
sea and pulls out a great fish at the first cast.
But hitherto his passion had been indulged under difficulties--with
improvised apparatus of cut poles, and flabby pieces of string, and
bent pins, which always failed to hold the biggest fish; or perhaps
with borrowed tackle, dangling a fat worm in vain before the noses
of the staring, supercilious sunfish that poised themselves in the
clear water around the Lake house dock at Lake George; or, at
past are unveiled, and the magical rites of reminiscence begin.
I.
You are fishing down the Swiftwater in the early Spring. In a
shallow pool, which the drought of summer will soon change into dry
land, you see the pale-green shoots of a little plant thrusting
themselves up between the pebbles, and just beginning to overtop
the falling water. You pluck a leaf of it as you turn out of the
stream to find a comfortable place for lunch, and, rolling it
between your fingers to see whether it smells like a good salad for
your bread and cheese, you discover suddenly that it is new mint.
For the rest of that day you are bewitched; you follow a stream
that runs through the country of Auld Lang Syne, and fill your
creel with the recollections of a boy and a rod.
And yet, strangely enough, you cannot recall the boy himself at all
distinctly. There is only the faintest image of him on the endless
roll of films that has been wound through your mental camera: and
in the very spots where his small figure should appear, it seems as
if the pictures were always light-struck. Just a blur, and the dim
outline of a new cap, or a well-beloved jacket with extra pockets,
or a much-hated pair of copper-toed shoes--that is all you can see.
But the people that the boy saw, the companions who helped or
hindered him in his adventures, the sublime and marvellous scenes
among the Catskills and the Adirondacks and the Green Mountains, in
the midst of which he lived and moved and had his summer holidays--
all these stand out sharp and clear, as the "Bab Ballads" say,
"Photographically lined
On the tablets of your mind."
And most vivid do these scenes and people become when the vague and
irrecoverable boy who walks among them carries a rod over his
shoulder, and you detect the soft bulginess of wet fish about his
clothing, and perhaps the tail of a big one emerging from his
pocket. Then it seems almost as if these were things that had
really happened, and of which you yourself were a great part.
The rod was a reward, yet not exactly of merit. It was an
instrument of education in the hand of a father less indiscriminate
than Solomon, who chose to interpret the text in a new way, and
preferred to educate his child by encouraging him in pursuits which
were harmless and wholesome, rather than by chastising him for
practices which would likely enough never have been thought of, if
they had not been forbidden. The boy enjoyed this kind of father
at the time, and later he came to understand, with a grateful
heart, that there is no richer inheritance in all the treasury of
unearned blessings. For, after all, the love, the patience, the
kindly wisdom of a grown man who can enter into the perplexities
and turbulent impulses of a boy's heart, and give him cheerful
companionship, and lead him on by free and joyful ways to know and
choose the things that are pure and lovely and of good report, make
as fair an image as we can find of that loving, patient Wisdom
which must be above us all if any good is to come out of our
childish race.
Now this was the way in which the boy came into possession of his
undreaded rod. He was by nature and heredity one of those
predestined anglers whom Izaak Walton tersely describes as "born
so." His earliest passion was fishing. His favourite passage in
Holy Writ was that place where Simon Peter throws a line into the
sea and pulls out a great fish at the first cast.
But hitherto his passion had been indulged under difficulties--with
improvised apparatus of cut poles, and flabby pieces of string, and
bent pins, which always failed to hold the biggest fish; or perhaps
with borrowed tackle, dangling a fat worm in vain before the noses
of the staring, supercilious sunfish that poised themselves in the
clear water around the Lake house dock at Lake George; or, at