Lewis France - With Rod and Line in Colorado Waters

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 this inquiry was addressed took in the situation at a glance. The glance was a dark one, but it quickly showed the silver lining.

“Wash him, and give him some clean clothes.”

“But,” she remonstrated, “this will never do; he will be drowned some day. How often must I forbid you going near the river?”

“I dun’no, mother.”

“What is that round your leg?”

“An eel skin.”

“Why did you tie it there?”

“To keep off cramp.”

“Keep off cramp! What does the boy mean?” There was a look of wonderment in the brown eyes, and of merriment in the grey. The colored member of the court volunteered an explanation, and wound up with the prophecy:

“Dat chile’ll neber be drownded, Miss Mary; I tell you so long as he wear dat eel skin he’ll nebber hab de cramp, an’ he kin swim; you ha’ar me, Miss Mary. Why, bless yo’ stars, honey, dat chile done swim dat ribber las’ Saturday, he did; I heerd ’em tellin’ it.”

“Heard who telling it?” broke in the president.

“Why, de chillun, ob cose. Dat Buckingham boy he bantered the chile an’ took his close ober in de skiff, and Mar’s Lou, he done follered, he did, an’ dat ribber a mile wide.”

The animated and confident manner of Jane did not lessen the anxious, even horrified, expression in the brown eyes, but the grey were a study as the owner drew the abashed urchin to him, with the inquiry:

“Is it true, my boy?”

“Yes, father.”

“Go bring me your fishing tackle.”

It was a sorry looking outfit – a fraction of a cane pole, about ten feet of a common line, and an indifferent hook looped on the end. The hand line was of better material, but a wreck – a very Gordian knot. They were dubiously but promptly passed over for inspection.

“Throw these into the stove – and, Jane, you make kindling wood of this pole.”

“Oh, father!” The boy’s lips quivered, the eyes filled, but the owner of the grey eyes gently held back the appealing hand that would have rescued the precious treasures.

“Hold on, my boy; do not misunderstand; papa will trust you; you shall have the best tackle in town.”

“Why do you deal with the boy in this way?” remonstrated the mother.

“Why? Because I myself was a boy once, and I don’t want to forget it.”

The grey eyes were the first to close – it is many a long year since – and the old boy’s fill a little now, as he reverently thinks of that day.

But the boy drifted with the tide, over the Blue Ridge and the Alleghenies, and twenty odd years ago he anchored in the wilderness, where Denver now stands, to surprise you folks from down East.

Do we have fishing in the Rocky Mountains? Aye, that we do, and right royal sport it is.

One day, nineteen years ago this summer, a neighbor came into my cabin and wanted to know of a young married woman there if she could not spare her Benedict for, say three days. He was fish hungry, this neighbor; was going off into the mountains, and wanted company. Of course she could; was glad to be rid of him. And so early next morning old Charlie was hitched to the buckboard. At five o’clock that same day there was a tent pitched in a little valley upon Bear creek, thirty-five miles from home, with two pairs of blankets, a coffee pot, two tin cups and a frying pan; not a soul or a habitation within twenty miles of us; a beautiful mountain stream, clear as crystal, cold as ice, and teeming with trout. What would you have, money? Why, bless your soul, money was at a discount; there were acres of it a little way off, only for the digging.

In those days fishing tackle was scarce, and a plum-bush pole and linen line were the best in the land.