Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877. Vol XX - No. 118Various
History
Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877. Vol XX - No. 118
Various
Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Science -- Periodicals
With a flat rock for a table, the grass to sit upon, and the bubbling music
of the little stream that flowed from the spring as an accompaniment, the
ham and bread and butter, the pickles and the hard-boiled eggs, and even
the pie with its mysterious leather crust and its doubtful inside of dried
peaches, tasted wonderfully well. We did not venture out upon the river
again until three o'clock, our worthy guides agreeing that the fish do not
bite well between noon and that hour, and both of us being disposed to rest
a little. My friend stretched himself on the thick grass, and when his pipe
was exhausted went fast asleep, and snored with great precision and power
to a mild sternutatory accompaniment by Mr. McGrath and Pete. I employed
myself in bringing up my largest bass from the boat to sit for his picture
in a little basin in the rock under the spring. After he had floundered
himself into a comparatively rational and quiet condition, much after the
fashion of a gentleman reluctant to have his portrait taken under the
auspices of the police, I succeeded in committing him to paper. He was a
handsome fish, and eminently deserving of the distinction thus conferred
upon him.
Sleeping in the grass on a summer afternoon is a bucolic luxury I never
fully appreciated. When I stirred up my friend he was red, perspirational
and full of lively entomological suspicions. He slapped the legs of his
pantaloons vigorously in spots, moved his arms uneasily, took off his
shirt-collar and implored me to look down his back.
"There's nothing there," I reported. "I know how it is myself: a fellow
always feels that way when he goes to sleep in the grass."
"Any woodticks here?" he asked.
"Begorra! plenty," said Mr. McGrath, sitting up. "They et a child," he
added with perfect seriousness of manner, "down here below last summer."
McGrath's eyes twinkled when my friend began to talk of peeling off and
jumping into the river after a general search. He was finally reassured,
and we started out. We had even better sport than in the morning, and
accumulated a splendid string of fish each. On the way down we passed two
boats in which were some gentlemen, evidently foreigners, engaged in
throwing flies with apparently the same results that we had attained in the
morning.
"Do you know who those people are?" I asked McGrath.
"I dunno, sorr," said he, "but I think they are from one of the legations
at Washington. They come up for a day's fishin' all along of the illigant
fishin' a party from the same place had one day last week I suppose;" and
he smiled.
"How was that, McGrath?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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