Our youthful fishing did not all consist in dropping our hooks and lines into the stream. In fishing, as everywhere in life, the expectation was always one of the chief delights. How often did we begin our excursions on the night before! We planned to get up early, that we might be ready to furnish the fishes with their breakfast,—to come upon them after their night’s sleep, when they were hungry and would bite eagerly at our baited hooks. How expectantly we took the spade and went to the garden and dug up the choicest and fattest worms,—enough to catch all the fishes in the sea! Then at night we dreamed of fish. We went to bed at twilight, that we might be ready in the gray morning hours. We started out early with lines and poles and bait. We stopped awhile at the big covered bridge and sat on the hard stone abutments, we put the wiggling worms upon the hooks and threw our lines far out into the stream. I cannot recollect that we thought of any pain to the fish, or still less to the worm,—though I do not believe that I could string a twisting worm over the length of one of those cold steel hooks to-day, no matter what reward might come. My father did not encourage me in fishing, although I do not remember that he said much about how cruel it really was. But he told me never to take a fish that I could not eat, and to throw the small ones back into the stream at once. Yet though all the fishes that came up were smaller than I had hoped or believed, still I was always reluctant to throw them back. The first fishing-spot seldom fulfilled our expectations, and most of us waited awhile and then went farther down the stream. Slowly and carefully we followed the winding banks, and we always felt sure that each new effort would be more successful than the last. But our expectations were never quite fulfilled. Now and then we would meet men and boys with a fine string of fish. These were generally of the class my father called shiftless and worthless; but as for us, we had little luck. Gradually, as the sun got higher in the heavens, we went farther and farther down the stream, always hopeful for success in the next deep hole. Finally, tired and hungry, we threw away our bait, and, with our small string of sickly-looking fish, turned toward home. Sometimes on our return we came upon a more patient boy who had sat quietly all day at the hole we left and been abundantly rewarded for his pains. Generally, weary and worn out, we would drop our fish on the woodshed floor and go into the kitchen to get our supper. Not until the next day would we again think of our string of fish, and then we usually found that the cat had eaten them in the night.