More Jonathan Papers Part 16

Maybe.

Well, of course, its always maybe, with ba.s.s. WellIm doneand its quarter to tenlate! Oh! Excuse me! Maybe youd rather I hadnt told you.

By the way, do I wind my watch to-night or not?

Not.

Not it is, then. Sure you wouldnt rather have it wound, though? We can leave it hanging in the tent. It wont break loose and bite you.

Yes, it would. There would be a somethinga taint

Oh, _all_ right!

We slept with the murmur of the river running through our dreams,a murmur of many voices: deep voices, high voices, grumbling voices as the stones go grinding and rolling along the ever-changing bottom,and only half roused when the dawn chorus of the birds filled the air. That dawn chorus was something we should have been loath to miss. Through the first gray of the morning there comes a stir in the woods, an expectant tremor; a bird peeps softly and is still; then another, and another, softly conferring together. As the light grows warmer, comes a clearer note from some leader, then a full, complete song; another, and the woods are awake, flinging out their wonderful song-greeting to the morning. There is in it a prodigality of swift-changing beauty like ocean surf: a continuous and intricate interweaving of rhythms, pulses and ebbings of clear tone, beautiful phrases rising antiphonal, showerings of bright notes, moments of subsidence, almost of pause. As the light grows and sharpens, the music reaches a crescendo of exuberance, and at last dies down as real day comes, bringing with it the days work. On our island the leader of the chorus was almost always a song sparrow, though once or twice a wood thrush came over from the sh.o.r.e woods and filled the hemlock shadows with the limpid splendors of his song.

Hearing the chorus through our dreams, we slept again, and when I really waked the sun was high, flecking the eastern V of our tent with dazzling patches. I heard Jonathan moving about outside, and the crackling of a new-made fire. I went to the front of the tent and looked out. Yes, there they were, the fire and Jonathan, in a quiet s.p.a.ce of shade where the early coolness still hung. Beyond them, half shut out from view by the low-spreading hemlock boughs, was the open riversuch gayety of swift water! Such dazzle of midsummer morning! I drew back, eager to be out in it.

Bacon and eggs, is it? called Jonathan, or shall I run down and try for a ba.s.s?

Dont! I called. I knew that if he once got out after ba.s.s he was lost to me for the day. And now we had cut loose from even the mild tyranny of his watch. As I thought of this I went over to the many-forked tree, whose close-trimmed branches served our tent as hat-rack, clothes-rack, everything-that-can-hang-or-perch-rack, and opened Jonathans watch.

Well, what time is it? Jonathan was peering in between the tent-flaps.

Twenty-two minutes before five.

A.M., I judge. Sorry you didnt let me wind it?

Not a bit. I was just curious to see when it stopped, that was all.

Well, now you know. Hereafter the official time for the camp is 4:38A.M.

or P.M., according to taste. Come along. The bacons done, and Im blest if I want to drop in the eggs.

Dropping an egg will never, I fear, be one of Jonathans most finished performances. He watched me do it with generous admiration. If you could just get over being scared of them, I suggested, as the last one plumped into the pan and set up its gentle sizzle.

No use. I _am_ scared of the things. I tap and tap, and nothing happens, and then I get mad and tap hard, and theyre all over the place.

By the time breakfast was over, even the coolness under the hemlocks was beginning to grow warm and aromatic. The birds in the sh.o.r.e woods were quieter, though out at the sunny end of our island, where the hemlocks gave place to low scrub growth, the song sparrow sang gayly now and then.

Now, said Jonathan, what about fis.h.i.+ng?

Welllets fis.h.!.+

One up stream and one down, or keep together?

Together, I decided. If we go two ways theres no telling when Ill ever see you again.

Yes, there is: when Im hungry.

No; some time after youve noticed youre hungry.

Now, if we had watches it would be so much simpler: we could meet here at, say, one oclock.

Simple, indeed! When did you ever look at a watch when you were fis.h.i.+ng, unless I made you? No, my way is simple, but we stay together.

Of course, in river fis.h.i.+ng, together means simply not absolutely out of sight of each other. Jonathan may be up to his arm-pits in mid-current, or marooned on a rock above a swirling eddy, while I am in a similar situation beyond calling distance, but so long as a bend in the river does not cut us off, we are together, and very companionable togetherness it is, too. When I see Jonathan wildly waving to attract my attention, I know he has either just caught a big ba.s.s or else just lost one, and this gives me something to smile over as I wonder which it is. After a time, if I am catching s.h.i.+ners and no ba.s.s, and Jonathan doesnt seem to be moving, I infer that his luck is better than mine, and drift along toward him. Or it may be the other way around, and he comes to look me up. Ba.s.s are the most uncertain of fish, and no one can predict when they will elect to bite, or where. Sometimes they are in the still water, deep or shallow according to their caprice; sometimes they hang on the edges of the rapids; sometimes they are in the dark, smooth eddies below the great boulders; sometimes in the clear depths around the rocks near sh.o.r.e. Each day afresh,indeed, each morning and each afternoon,the fisherman must try, and try, and try, until he discovers what their choice has been for that special time. Yet no fisherman who has once drawn out a good ba.s.s from a certain bit of water can help feeling, next time, that there is another waiting for him there. That is one of the reasons why he is always hopeful, and so always happy. The fish he has caught, at this well-remembered spot and that, rise up out of the past and flick their tails at him; and all the stretches betweenstretches of water that have never for him held anything but s.h.i.+ners, stretches of time diversified by not even a nibblesink into pleasant insignificance.

We banked our fire, stowed everything in the tent that a thunderstorm would hurt, and splashed out into the river. There it lay in all its bright, swift beauty, and we stood a moment, looking, feeling the push of the water about our knees and the warmth of the sun on our shoulders.

It makes a difference, sleeping out in it all, I said. You feel as if it belonged to you so much more. I quite own the river this morning, dont you?

Quite. But not the ba.s.s in it. Bet you dont catch one!

Bet I beat you!

Ba.s.s, mind you. Sunfish dont count. Youre always catching sunfish.

They count in the pan. But Ill beat you on ba.s.s. I know some places

Who doesnt? All right, go ahead!

We were off; Jonathan, as usual, wading up to his chest or perched on a bit of boulder above some dark, slick rapid; I preferring water not more than waist-deep, and not too far from sh.o.r.e to miss the responses of the wood-folk to my pa.s.sing: soft flurries of wings; shy, half-suppressed peepings; quick warning notes; light footfalls, hopping or running or galloping; the snapping of twigs and the crus.h.i.+ng of leaves. Some sounds tell me who the creature is,the warning of the blue jay, the whirr of the big ruffed grouse, the thud of the bounding rabbit,but many others leave me guessing, which is almost better. When a very big stick snaps, I always feel sure a deer is stealing away, though Jonathan a.s.sures me that a chewink can break twigs and kick up a row generally, so that youd swear it was nothing smaller than a wild bull.

So we fished that day. When I caught a ba.s.s, which was seldom, I whooped and waved it at Jonathan, and when I caught a s.h.i.+ner, which was rather often, I waved it too, just to keep his mind occupied. Hours pa.s.sed, and we met at a bend in the river where the deep water glides close to sh.o.r.e.

Hungry? I asked.

Now you speak of it, yes.

Shall we go back?

How can I tell? Now, if we only had that watch wed know whether we ought to be hungry or not.

What does that matter, if we _are_ hungry? Besides, if youd had a watch, youd have had to carry it in your teeth. You know perfectly well you wouldnt have brought it, anyway.

Wellthen, at least when we got back, we should have known whether we ought to have been hungry or not. Now we shall never know.

Never! Oh! Look there, Jonathan! Were going to catch it! A sense of growing shadow in the air had made me look up, and there, back of the steep-rising woods, hung a blue-black cloud, with ragged edges crawling out into the brightness of the sky.

Sure enough! The ba.s.sll bite now, if it really comes. Wait till the first drops, and see what you see.

We had not long to wait. There came that sudden expectancy in the air and the trees, the strange pallor in the light, the chill sweep of wind gusts with warm pauses between. Then a few big drops splashed on the dusty, sun-baked stones about us.

Now! Wade right out there, to the edge of that ledgedont slip over, its deep. Ill go down a little way.

I waded out carefully, and cast, in the smooth, dark water already beginning to be rain-pocked. It was surprisingly s.h.i.+very, that storm wind!

I glanced toward sh.o.r.e to look for shelterI remembered an overhanging ledge of rockthen my line went taut! I forgot about shelter, forgot about being chilly; I knew it was a good ba.s.s.

I got him intoo big to go through the hole in my creelcast for anotherand anotherand yet another. The rain began to fall in sheets, and the wind nearly blew me over, but who could run away from such fis.h.i.+ng?