Silas Strong 16

Silas Strong 16

Strong paddled to a large, flat rock which rose, mid-stream, a little

above water. He climbed upon it and sat down lazily.

 

Nature had taught him, as she teaches all who bear heavy burdens, to

conserve his strength. He had none to waste in the support of dignity.

When he sat down his weight was braced with hand, foot, and elbow so

as to rest his heart and muscles. Now he seemed to anchor himself by

throwing his right knee over his left foot. His garment of cord and

muscle lay loosely on his bones. There was that in the pose of this man

to remind one of an ox lying peacefully in the field. He drew a loop of

line off the reel, and with no motion of arm or body, his wrist bent,

the point of the rod sprang forward, his flies leaped the length of

his line and fell lightly on the river surface. They wavered across the

current. He drew another loop of line. The rod rose and gave its double

spring, and his flies leaped away and fell farther down the current. So

his line flickered back and forth, running out and reaching with every

cast until it spanned near a hundred feet.

 

Still the Emperor smoked lazily, and, saving that little movement of the

wrist, reposed as motionless and serene as the rock upon which he sat.

 

Suddenly Strong's figure underwent a remarkable change. He bent forward,

alert as a panther in sight of his prey. His mouth was open, his eyes

full of animation. The supple wrist bent swiftly. The flies sprang up

and flashed backward; the line sang in its flight. Where the squirrel

rose a big trout had sprung above water and come down with a splash. But

he had missed his aim. Again the flies lighted precisely where the

trout sprang and wavered slowly through the bubbles. A breath of silence

followed. The finned arrow burst above water in a veil of mist; down he

plunged with a fierce grab at the tail-fly. The wrist of the fisherman

sprang upward. The barb caught; the line slanted straight as a lance and

seemed to strike at the river-bottom. The rod was bending. The fish had

given a quick haul, and now the line's end came rushing in. The shrewd

old trout knew how to gather slack on a fisherman. Strong rose like a

jack-in-the-box. His hand flashed to the reel. It began to play like

the end of a piston. He swung half around and his rod came up. The fish

turned for a mad rush. With hands upon rod and silk the fisherman

held to check him. Strong's line ripped through the water plane from

mid-river to the shadow of the bank. The strain upon the fish's jaw

halted him. He settled and began to jerk on the line. Strong raised his

foot and tapped the butt of his rod. The report seemed to go down the

line as if it had been a telephone message. It startled the trout, and

again he took a long reach of silk off the reel. Then slowly he went

back and forth through an arc of some twenty feet, and the long line

swung like a pendulum. Weakened by his efforts, he began to lead in.

Slowly he came near the rock, and soon the splendid trout lay gasping

from utter weariness an arm's-length from his captor.

 

As the net approached him he dove again, hauling with fierce energy. The

man was leaning over the edge of the rock, his rod in one hand, his net

in the other. He came near losing his balance in the sudden attack. He

scrambled into position. Again the trout gave up and followed the strain

of the leader. Strong let himself down upon the river-bottom beside the

rock, and stood to his belt in water. The fish retreated again and came

back helpless and was taken.

 

He filled the net. A great tail-fin waved above its rim. The Emperor

hefted his catch and blew like a buck deer, after his custom in moments

of great stress. Then came a declaration of unusual length.

 

"Ye could r-reel me in with a c-c-cotton th-thread an' p-pick me up in

yer f-fingers."

 

It was growing dusk. Strong clambered to the top of the rock. "Pop"

Migley brought the canoe alongside.

 

The Emperor gave a loud whistle of surprise.

 

"Dunmore's t-trout!" he said, soberly. He had found a "black gnat"

embedded in the fish's mouth, its snell broken near the loop. He put the

struggling fish back in the net and tied his handkerchief across the top

of it.

 

The Migleys both agreed that they were ready for supper.

 

The Emperor got aboard and requested the elder Migley to keep the fish

under water, while he took his paddle and pushed for camp. They put

their trout in a spring at the boat-house.

 

The sports hurried to camp. Master came down the path and met Strong.

 

"I've got D-Dunmore's t-trout," said the latter.

 

"Good!" Master answered; "that will give us an excuse to go and call on

him."

 

 

 

 

XIII

 

THAT evening, while the others went out to sit by the camp-fire, Silas

Strong put the children to bed and lay down beside them. They begged him

for a story, he had neither skill nor practice in narration, he had, as

the rustic merchant is wont to say, a desire to please. He knew that he

had disappointed the children and was doing his best to recover their

esteem. Possibly he ought to try and be more like other folks. He rubbed

his thin, sandy beard, he groped among the treasures of his memory.

 

Infrequently he had gone over them with Sinth or the Lady Ann, but

briefly and with halting words and slow reflection. He had that respect

for the past which is a characteristic of the true historian, but, in

his view, it gave him little to say of his own exploits. He was wont to

observe, ironically, that others knew more of them than he knew himself.

Owing, it may be, to his little infirmity of speech, he had never been

misled into the broad way of prevarication. Brevity had been his refuge

and his strength. He regarded with contempt the boastful narratives of

woodsmen.

 

Now the siren voices of the little folks had made him thoughtful. Had he

nothing to give them but disappointment? He hesitated. Then he fell, as

it were, but, happily, for the sake of those two he had begun to love,

and not through pride. It was a kind of modesty which caused him to

reach for the candle and blow it out. Then, boldly, as it were, he began

to sing a brief account of one of his own adventures. He could sing

without stammering, and therefore he sang an odd and almost tuneless

chant. He accepted such rhyme and rhythm as chanced to drift in upon

the monotonous current of his epic; but he turned not aside for them. He

sang glibly, jumping in and out of that old, melodious trail of "The Son

of a Gamboleer." Strong called this unique creation of his

 

"THE STORY OF THE MELLERED BEAR.

 

 

"One day yer Uncle Silas went for to kill a bear,

 

An' a dog he took an' follered which his name was

 

little Zeb;

 

Bym-by we come acrost a track which looked as big

 

as sin,

 

An' Zeb he hollered 'twas a bear, which I didn't quite

 

believe in

 

Until I got down on my knee, an' then I kind o'

 

laughed,

 

For su'thin' cur'us showed me where he'd wrote his

 

autygraft,

 

An' which way he was travellin' all in the frosty snow;

 

An' I follered Zeb, the bear-dog, as fast as I could go,

 

An' purty soon I see

 

Where the bear had tore his overcoat upon a hem

 

lock-tree,

 

An' left some threads behind him which fell upon his

 

track,

 

Which I wouldn't wonder if he done a-scratchin' of

 

his back,

 

Which caused me for to grin an' laugh all on ac

 

count o' my feelin's."

 

Here came a pause, in which the singer sought a moment of relaxation, as

it would seem, in a thoughtful and timely cough.

 

"Bym-by I come up kind o' dost an' where that I

 

could see

 

Zeb was jumpin' like a rabbit an' a-hollerin' t' me;

 

An' I could see the ol' bear's home all underneath a

 

ledge,

 

An' the track of his big moggasins up to the very edge.

 

I took an' fetched some pine-knots an' a lot of ol'

 

dead limbs,

 

An' built a fire upon his door-step an' let the smoke

 

blow in;

 

An' then I took a piece o' rope an' tethered Zeb away

 

So's that he'd keep his breeches fer to use another

 

day.