The Junior Classics, Volume 8: Animal and Nature Stories
General
The Junior Classics, Volume 8: Animal and Nature Stories
Children's literature
But what he had feared came to pass. The big maskinonge did make a
run under the boat. He was straight in front, when with a
lightning-like dash he made a half-circle and went under the boat
from the side.
With a quick motion of arm and wrist, Lee threw the end of the rod
over the prow of the canoe. It was all there was to do, but the rod
would surely have struck the end of the boat, and something would
probably have broken and the fish escaped, had not Carl, with a
mighty stroke of the paddle, backed the canoe so quickly that Lee
was almost thrown overboard. But the fish was saved.
The fight was nearly over. Gradually they forced the maskinonge
toward the sandy beach. Mr. Cameron had got a big, long-handled
gaff-hook, and now, forgetful of his rheumatism, waded out
waist-deep into the water. There was a brief but decisive struggle
that went hopelessly against the fish, and Mr. Cameron gaffed Old
Muskie and dragged him ashore.
Lee and Carl stepped out on the beach, both of them on the verge of
collapse.
There was a great fish supper at Forest Lodge that night. The skin,
head, tail and fins of Old Muskie were carefully preserved and sent
to the best taxidermist in Chicago; but there was enough left of
his fifty-three-pound body for the company gathered about the big
"Oak Hall" dining-table. On the right of Mr. Cameron sat Lee Henly,
and on the left, Carl Mills. Mr. Cameron and the Forest Lodge
people were jubilant. Carl found a fifty-dollar bill under his
plate, and Lee found a check for one hundred dollars. And as the
meal progressed, the story of the capture of Old Muskie was told
substantially as I have told it to you.
There is little more to tell. I might tell you about how Lee Henly
worked his way through college, after the catching of Old Muskie
had given him his start. I could tell you of his work as general
manager of the business house of Cameron, Page & Co. of Chicago.
But that would be the story of Lee Henly, and I started out to tell
you nothing but the story of Old Muskie, whose mounted body is now
in the private office of Mr. Cameron himself, where Lee Henly sees
it every day.
TEACHING FISH TO RING BELLS
By C. F. Holder
A certain pond in the country was once peopled with a number of
turtles, frogs, and fishes which I came to consider my pets, and
which at last grew so tame that I fed them from my hands. Among
them, however, were four or five little sticklebacks that lived
under the shade of a big willow, and these were so quarrelsome that
I generally fed them apart from the rest. But sometimes all met,
and then the feast usually was ended by the death of a minnow. For,
shocking to say, whenever there was a dispute for the food, some
one of the little fishes was almost sure to be devoured by the
hungry sticklebacks.
These stickleback-and-minnow combats, after a while, came to be of
daily occurrence, and the reason for this was a singular one, which
I must explain.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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