Fishin' Jimmy Part 1

Fis.h.i.+n' Jimmy.

by Annie Trumbull Slosson.

It was on the margin of Pond Brook, just back of Uncle Eben's, that I first saw Fis.h.i.+n' Jimmy. It was early June, and we were again at Franconia, that peaceful little village among the northern hills.

The boys, as usual, were tempting the trout with false fly or real worm, and I was roaming along the bank, seeking spring flowers, and hunting early b.u.t.terflies and moths. Suddenly there was a little plash in the water at the spot where Ralph was fis.h.i.+ng, the slender tip of his rod bent, I heard a voice cry out, "Strike him, sonny, strike him!" and an old man came quickly but noiselessly through the bushes, just as Ralph's line flew up into s.p.a.ce, with, alas! no s.h.i.+ning, spotted trout upon the hook. The new comer was a spare, wiry man of middle height, with a slight stoop in his shoulders, a thin brown face, and scanty gray hair. He carried a fis.h.i.+ng-rod, and had some small trout strung on a forked stick in one hand. A simple, homely figure, yet he stands out in memory just as I saw him then, no more to be forgotten than the granite hills, the rus.h.i.+ng streams, the cascades of that north country I love so well.

We fell into talk at once, Ralph and Waldo rus.h.i.+ng eagerly into questions about the fish, the bait, the best spots in the stream, advancing their own small theories, and asking advice from their new friend. For friend he seemed even in that first hour, as he began simply, but so wisely, to teach my boys the art he loved.

They are older now, and are no mean anglers, I believe; but they look back gratefully to those brookside lessons, and acknowledge gladly their obligations to Fis.h.i.+n' Jimmy. But it is not of these practical teachings I would now speak; rather of the lessons of simple faith, of unwearied patience, of self-denial and cheerful endurance, which the old man himself seemed to have learned, strangely enough, from the very sport so often called cruel and murderous. Incomprehensible as it may seem, to his simple intellect the fisherman's art was a whole system of morality, a guide for every-day life, an education, a gospel. It was all any poor mortal man, woman, or child, needed in this world to make him or her happy, useful, good.

At first we scarcely realized this, and wondered greatly at certain things he said, and the tone in which he said them. I remember at that first meeting I asked him, rather carelessly, "Do you like fis.h.i.+ng?" He did not reply at first; then he looked at me with those odd, limpid, green-gray eyes of his which always seemed to reflect the clear waters of mountain streams, and said very quietly: "You would n't ask me if I liked my mother--or my wife."

And he always spoke of his pursuit as one speaks of something very dear, very sacred. Part of his story I learned from others, but most of it from himself, bit by bit, as we wandered together day by day in that lovely hill-country. As I tell it over again I seem to hear the rush of mountain streams, the "sound of a going in the tops of the trees," the sweet, pensive strain of white-throat sparrow, and the plash of leaping trout; to see the crystal-clear waters pouring over granite rock, the wonderful purple light upon the mountains, the flash and glint of darting fish, the tender green of early summer in the north country.

Fis.h.i.+n' Jimmy's real name was James Whitcher. He was born in the Franconia Valley of northern New Hamps.h.i.+re, and his whole life had been pa.s.sed there. He had always fished; he could not remember when or how he learned the art. From the days when, a tiny, bare-legged urchin in ragged frock, he had dropped his piece of string with its bent pin at the end into the narrow, shallow brooklet behind his father's house, through early boyhood's season of roaming along Gale River, wading Black Brook, rowing a leaky boat on Streeter or Mink Pond, through youth, through manhood, on and on into old age, his life had apparently been one long day's fis.h.i.+ng--an angler's holiday. Had it been only that? He had not cared for books, or school, and all efforts to tie him down to study were unavailing. But he knew well the books of running brooks. No dry botanical text-book or manual could have taught him all he now knew of plants and flowers and trees.

He did not call the yellow spatterdock Nuphar advena, but he knew its large leaves of rich green, where the black ba.s.s or pickerel sheltered themselves from the summer sun, and its yellow b.a.l.l.s on stout stems, around which his line so often twined and twisted, or in which the hook caught, not to be jerked out till the long, green, juicy stalk itself, topped with globe of greenish gold, came up from its wet bed. He knew the sedges along the bank with their nodding ta.s.sels and stiff lance-like leaves, the feathery gra.s.ses, the velvet moss upon the wet stones, the sea-green lichen on boulder or tree-trunk. There, in that corner of Echo Lake, grew the thickest patch of pipewort, with its small, round, grayish-white, mushroom-shaped tops on long, slender stems. If he had styled it Eriocaulon septangulare, would it have shown a closer knowledge of its habits than did his careful avoidance of its vicinity, his keeping line and flies at a safe distance, as he muttered to himself, "Them pesky b.u.t.t'ns agin!" He knew by sight the bur-reed of mountain ponds, with its round, p.r.i.c.kly b.a.l.l.s strung like big beads on the stiff, erect stalks; the little water-lobelia, with tiny purple blossoms, springing from the waters of lake and pond. He knew, too, all the strange, beautiful under-water growth: bladderwort in long, feathery garlands, pellucid water-weed, quillwort in stiff little bunches with sharp-pointed leaves of olive-green,--all so seldom seen save by the angler whose hooks draw up from time to time the wet, lovely tangle. I remember the amus.e.m.e.nt with which a certain well-known botanist, who had journeyed to the mountains in search of a little plant, found many years ago near Echo Lake, but not since seen, heard me propose to consult Fis.h.i.+n' Jimmy on the subject. But I was wiser than he knew. Jimmy looked at the specimen brought as an aid to identification. It was dry and flattened, and as unlike a living, growing plant as are generally the specimens from an herbarium. But it showed the awl-shaped leaves, and thread-like stalk with its tiny round seed-vessels, like those of our common shepherd's-purse, and Jimmy knew it at once. "There's a dreffle lot o' that peppergra.s.s out in deep water there, jest where I ketched the big pick'ril," he said quietly. "I seen it nigh a foot high, an' it 's juicier and livin'er than them dead sticks in your book." At our request he accompanied the unbelieving botanist and myself to the spot; and there, looking down through the sunlit water, we saw great patches of that rare and long-lost plant of the Cruciferse known to science as Subularia aquatica. For forty years it had hidden itself away, growing and blossoming and casting abroad its tiny seeds in its watery home, unseen, or at least unnoticed, by living soul, save by the keen, soft, limpid eyes of Fis.h.i.+n' Jimmy. And he knew the trees and shrubs so well: the alder and birch from which as a boy he cut his simple, pliant pole; the shad-blow and iron-wood (he called them, respectively, sugarplum and hard-hack) which he used for the more ambitious rods of maturer years; the mooseberry, wayfaring-tree, hobble-bush, or triptoe,--it has all these names, with stout, trailing branches, over which he stumbled as he hurried through the woods and underbrush in the darkening twilight.

He had never heard of entomology. Guenee, Hubner, and Fabricius were unknown names; but he could have told these worthies many new things. Did they know just at what hour the trout ceased leaping at dark fly or moth, and could see only in the dim light the ghostly white miller? Did they know the comparative merits, as a tempting bait, of gra.s.shopper, cricket, spider, or wasp; and could they, with bits of wool, tinsel, and feather, copy the real dipterous, hymenopterous, or orthopterous insect? And the birds: he knew them as do few ornithologists, by sight, by sound, by little ways and tricks of their own, known only to themselves and him. The white-throat sparrow with its sweet, far-reaching chant; the hermit-thrush with its chime of bells in the calm summer twilight; the vesper-sparrow that ran before him as he crossed the meadow, or sang for hours, as he fished the stream, its unvarying, but scarcely monotonous little strain; the cedar-bird, with its smooth brown coast of Quaker simplicity, and speech as brief and simple as Quaker yea or nay; the winter-wren sending out his strange, lovely, liquid warble from the high, rocky side of Cannon Mountain; the bluebird of the early spring, so welcome to the winter-weary dwellers in that land of ice and show, as he

"From the bluer deeps Lets fall a quick, prophetic strain,"

of summer, of streams freed and flowing again, of waking, darting, eager fish; the veery, the phoebe, the jay, the vireo,--all these were friends, familiar, tried and true to Fis.h.i.+n' Jimmy. The cluck and coo of the cuckoo, the bubbling song of bobolink in buff and black, the watery trill of the stream-loving swamp-sparrow, the whispered whistle of the stealthy, darkness-haunting whippoorwill, the gurgle and gargle of the cow-bunting,--he knew each and all, better than did Audubon, Nuttall, or Wilson. But he never dreamed that even the tiniest of his little favorites bore, in the scientific world, far away from that quiet mountain nest, such names as Troglodytes hyemalis or Melospiza pal.u.s.tris. He could tell you, too, of strange, shy creatures rarely seen except by the early-rising, late-fis.h.i.+ng angler, in quiet, lonesome places: the otter, muskrat, and mink of ponds and lakes,--rival fishers, who bore off prey sometimes from under his very eyes,--field-mice in meadow and pasture, blind, burrowing moles, p.r.i.c.kly hedge-hogs, brown hares, and social, curious squirrels.

Sometimes he saw deer, in the early morning or in the dusk of the evening, as they came to drink at the lake sh.o.r.e, and looked at him with big, soft eyes not unlike his own. Sometimes a s.h.a.ggy bear trotted across his path and hid himself in the forest, or a sharp-eared fox ran barking through the bushes. He loved to tell of these things to us who cared to listen, and I still seem to hear his voice saying in hushed tones, after a story of woodland sight or sound: "n.o.body don't see 'em but fishermen. n.o.body don't hear 'em but fishermen."

II

But it was of another kind of knowledge he oftenest spoke, and of which I shall try to tell you, in his own words as nearly as possible.

First let me say that if there should seem to be the faintest tinge of irreverence in aught I write, I tell my story badly. There was no irreverence in Fis.h.i.+n' Jimmy. He possessed a deep and profound veneration for all things spiritual and heavenly; but it was the veneration of a little child, mingled as is that child's with perfect confidence and utter frankness. And he used the dialect of the country in which he lived.

"As I was tellin' ye," he said, "I allers loved fis.h.i.+n' an' knowed 't was the best thing in the hull airth. I knowed it larnt ye more about creeters an' yarbs an' stuns an' water than books could tell ye. I knowed it made folks patienter an' commonsenser an'

weather-wiser an' cuter gen'ally; gin 'em more fac'lty than all the school larnin' in creation. I knowed it was more fillin' than vittles, more rousin' than whisky, more soothin' than lodlum. I knowed it cooled ye off when ye was het, an' het ye when ye was cold. I knowed all that, o' course--any fool knows it. But--will ye b'l'eve it?--I was more 'n twenty-one year old, a man growed, 'fore I foun' out why 't was that away. Father an' mother was Christian folks, good out-an'-out Calv'nist Baptists from over East'n way. They fetched me up right, made me go to meetin' an'

read a chapter every Sunday, an' say a hymn Sat'day night a'ter was.h.i.+n'; an' I useter say my prayers mos' nights. I wa'n't a bad boy as boys go. But n.o.body thought o' tellin' me the one thing, jest the one single thing, that 'd ha' made all the diffunce. I knowed about G.o.d, an' how he made me an' made the airth, an'

everything an' once I got thinkin' about that, an' I asked my father if G.o.d made the fishes. He said 'course he did, the sea an'

all that in 'em is; but somehow that did n't seem to mean nothin'

much to me, an' I lost my int'rist agin. An' I read the Scripter account o' Jonah an' the big fish, an' all that in Job about pullin' out levi'thing with a hook an' stickin' fish spears in his head, an' some parts in them queer books nigh the end o' the ole Test'ment about fish-ponds an' fish-gates an' fish-pools, an' how the fishers shall l'ment--everything I could pick out about fis.h.i.+n'

an' seen; but it did n't come home to me; 't wa'n't my kind o'

fis.h.i.+n' an' I did n't seem ter sense it.

"But one day--it's more 'n forty year ago now, but I rec'lect it same 's 't was yest'day, an' I shall rec'lect it forty thousand year from now if I 'm 'round, an' I guess I shall be--I heerd--suthin'--diffunt. I was down in the village one Sunday; it wa'n't very good fis.h.i.+n'--the streams was too full; an' I thought I 'd jest look into the meetin'-house 's I went by. 'T was the ole union meetin'-house, down to the corner, ye know, an' they had n't got no reg'lar s'pply, an' ye never knowed what sort ye 'd hear, so 't was kind o' excitin'.

"'T was late, 'most 'leven o'clock, an' the sarm'n had begun.

There was a strange man a-preachin', some one from over to the hotel. I never heerd his name, I never seed him from that day to this; but I knowed his face. Queer enough I 'd seed him a-fis.h.i.+n'.

I never knowed he was a min'ster; he did n't look like one. He went about like a real fisherman, with ole clo'es an' an ole hat with hooks stuck in it, an' big rubber boots, an' he fished, reely fished, I mean--ketched 'em. I guess 't was that made me liss'n a leetle sharper 'n us'al, for I never seed a fis.h.i.+n' min'ster afore.

Elder Jacks'n, he said 't was a sinf'l waste o' time, an' ole Parson Loomis, he 'd an idee it was cruel an' onmarciful; so I thought I 'd jest see what this man 'd preach about, an' I settled down to liss'n to the sarm'n.

"But there wa'n't no sarm'n; not what I 'd been raised to think was the on'y true kind. There wa'n't no heads, no fustlys nor sec'ndlys, nor fin'ly bruthrins, but the first thing I knowed I was hearin' a story, an' 't was a fis.h.i.+n' story. 'T was about Some One--I had n't the least idee then who 't was, an' how much it all meant--Some One that was dreffle fond o' fis.h.i.+n' an' fishermen, Some One that sot everythin' by the water, an' useter go along by the lakes an' ponds, an' sail on 'em, an' talk with the men that was fis.h.i.+n'. An' how the fishermen all liked him, 'nd asked his 'dvice, an' done jest 's he telled 'em about the likeliest places to fish; an' how they allers ketched more for mindin' him; an' how when he was a-preachin' he would n't go into a big meetin'-house an' talk to rich folks all slicked up, but he 'd jest go out in a fis.h.i.+n' boat, an' ask the men to shove out a mite, an' he 'd talk to the folks on sh.o.r.e, the fis.h.i.+n' folks an' their wives an' the boys an' gals playin' on the sh.o.r.e. An' then, best o' everythin', he telled how when he was a-choosin' the men to go about with him an' help him an' larn his ways so 's to come a'ter him, he fust o'

all picked out the men he 'd seen every day fis.h.i.+n', an' mebbe fished with hisself; for he knowed 'em an' knowed he could trust 'em.

"An' then he telled us about the day when this preacher come along by the lake--a dreffle sightly place, this min'ster said; he 'd seed it hisself when he was trav'lin' in them countries--an' come acrost two men he knowed well; they was brothers, an' they was a-fis.h.i.+n'. An' he jest asked 'em in his pleasant-spoken, frien'ly way--there wa'n't never sech a drawin', takin', lovin' way with any one afore as this man had, the min'ster said--he jest asked 'em to come along with him; an' they lay down their poles an' their lines an' everythin', an' jined him. An' then he come along a spell further, an' he sees two boys out with their ole father, an' they was settin' in a boat an' fixin' up their tackle, an' he asked 'em if they 'd jine him, too, an' they jest dropped all their things, an' left the ole man with the boat an' the fish an' the bait an'

follered the preacher. I don't tell it very good. I 've read it an' read it sence that; but I want to make ye see how it sounded to me, how I took it, as the min'ster telled it that summer day in Francony meetin'. Ye see I 'd no idee who the story was about, the man put it so plain, in common kind o' talk, without any come-to-pa.s.ses an' whuffers an' thuffers, an' I never conceited 't was a Bible narr'tive.

"An' so fust thing I knowed I says to myself, 'That 's the kind o'

teacher I want. If I could come acrost a man like that, I 'd jest foller him, too, through thick an' thin.' Well, I can't put the rest on it into talk very good; 't aint jest the kind o' thing to speak on 'fore folks, even sech good friends as you. I aint the sort to go back on my word,--fishermen aint, ye know,--an' what I 'd said to myself 'fore I knowed who I was bindin' myself to, I stuck to a'terwards when I knowed all about him. For 't aint for me to tell ye, who've got so much more larnin' than me, that there was a dreffle lot more to that story than the fis.h.i.+n' part. That lovin', givin' up, suff'rin', dyin' part, ye know it all yerself, an' I can't kinder say much on it, 'cept when I 'm jest all by myself, or--'long o' him.

"That a'ternoon I took my ole Bible that I had n't read much sence I growed up, an' I went out into the woods 'long the river, an'

'stid o' fis.h.i.+n' I jest sot down an' read that hull story. Now ye know it yerself by heart, an' ye 've knowed it all yer born days, so ye can't begin to tell how new an' 'stonis.h.i.+n' 't was to me, an'

how findin' so much fis.h.i.+n' in it kinder helped me unnerstan' an'

b'l'eve it every mite, an' take it right hum to me to foller an'

live up to 's long 's I live an' breathe. Did j'ever think on it, reely? I tell ye, his r'liging 's a fis.h.i.+n' r'liging all through.

His friends was fis.h.i.+n' folks; his pulpit was a fis.h.i.+n' boat, or the sh.o.r.e o' the lake; he loved the ponds an' streams; an' when his d'sciples went out fis.h.i.+n', if he did n't go hisself with 'em, he 'd go a'ter 'em, walkin' on the water, to cheer 'em up an' comfort 'em.

"An' he was allers 'round the water; for the story 'll say, 'he come to the seash.o.r.e,' or 'he begun to teach by the seaside,' or agin, 'he entered into a boat,' an' 'he was in the stern o' the boat, asleep.'

"An' he used fish in his mir'cles. He fed that crowd o' folks on fish when they was hungry, bought 'em from a little chap on the sh.o.r.e. I 've oft'n thought how dreffle tickled that boy must 'a'

ben to have him take them fish. Mebbe they wa'n't nothin' but s.h.i.+ners, but the fust the little feller 'd ever ketched; an' boys set a heap on their fust ketch. He was dreffle good to child'en, ye know. An' who 'd he come to a'ter he 'd died, an' ris agin?

Why, he come down to the sh.o.r.e 'fore daylight, an' looked off over the pond to where his ole frien's was a-fis.h.i.+n'. Ye see they 'd gone out jest to quiet their minds an' keep up their sperrits; ther 's nothin' like fis.h.i.+n' for that, ye know, an' they 'd ben in a heap o' trubble. When they was settin' up the night afore, worryin' an' wond'rin' an' s'misin' what was goin' ter become on 'em without their master; Peter 'd got kinder desprit, an' he up an' says in his quick way, says he, 'Anyway, _I_ 'm goin'

a-fis.h.i.+n'.' An' they all see the sense on it,--any fisherman would,--an' they says, says they, 'We '11 go 'long too.' But they did n't ketch anythin'. I suppose they could n't fix their minds on it, an' everythin' went wrong like. But when mornin' come creepin' up over the mountings, fust thin' they knowed they see him on the bank, an' he called out to 'em to know if they'd ketched anythin'. The water jest run down my cheeks when I heerd the min'r ster tell that, an' it kinder makes my eyes wet every time I think on 't. For 't seems 's if it might 'a' ben me in that boat, who heern that v'ice I loved so dreffle well speak up agin so nat'ral from the bank there. An' he eat some o' their fis.h.!.+ O' course he done it to sot their minds easy, to show 'em he wa'n't quite a sperrit yit, but jest their own ole frien' who 'd ben out in the boat with 'em so many, many times. But seems to me, jest the fac'

he done it kinder makes fish an' fis.h.i.+n' diffunt from any other thing in the hull airth. I tell ye them four books that gin his story is chock full o' things that go right to the heart o'

fishermen,--nets, an' hooks, an' boats, an' the sh.o.r.es, an' the sea, an' the mountings, Peter's fis.h.i.+n'-coat, lilies, an' sparrers, an' gra.s.s o' the fields, an' all about the evenin' sky bein' red or lowerin', an' fair or foul weather.

"It 's an out-doors, woodsy, country story, 'sides bein' the heav'nliest one that was ever telled. I read the hull Bible, as a duty ye know. I read the epis'les, but somehow they don't come home to me. Paul was a great man, a dreffle smart scholar, but he was raised in the city, I guess, an' when I go from the gospils into Paul's writin's it 's like goin' from the woods an' hills an'

streams o' Francony into the streets of a big city like Concord or Manch'ster."

The old man did not say much of his after life and the fruits of this strange conversion, but his neighbors told us a great deal.

They spoke of his unselfishness, his charity, his kindly deeds; told of his visiting the poor and unhappy, nursing the sick. They said the little children loved him, and everyone in the village and for miles around trusted and leaned upon Fis.h.i.+n' Jimmy. He taught the boys to fish, sometimes the girls too; and while learning to cast and strike, to whip the stream, they drank in knowledge of higher things, and came to know and love Jimmy's "fis.h.i.+n'

r'liging." I remember they told me of a little French Canadian girl, a poor, wretched waif, whose mother, an unknown tramp, had fallen dead in the road near the village. The child, an untamed little heathen, was found clinging to her mother's body in an agony of grief and rage, and fought like a tiger when they tried to take her away. A boy in the little group attracted to the spot, ran away, with a child's faith in his old friend, to summon Fis.h.i.+n'

Jimmy. He came quickly, lifted the little savage tenderly, and carried her away.

No one witnessed the taming process, but in a few days the pair were seen together on the margin of Black Brook, each with a fish-pole. Her dark face was bright with interest and excitement as she took her first lesson in the art of angling. She jabbered and chattered in her odd patois, he answered in broadest New England dialect, but the two quite understood each other, and though Jimmy said afterward that it was "dreffle to hear her call the fish pois'n," they were soon great friends and comrades. For weeks he kept and cared for the child, and when she left him for a good home in Bethlehem, one would scarcely have recognized in the gentle, affectionate girl the wild creature of the past. Though often questioned as to the means used to effect this change, Jimmy's explanation seemed rather vague and unsatisfactory. "'T was fis.h.i.+n' done it," he said; "on'y fis.h.i.+n'; it allers works. The Christian r'liging itself had to begin with fis.h.i.+n', ye know."

III

But one thing troubled Fis.h.i.+n' Jimmy.

He wanted to be a "fisher of men." That was what the Great Teacher had promised he would make the fishermen who left their boats to follow him. What strange, literal meaning he attached to the terms, we could not tell. In vain we--especially the boys, whose young hearts had gone out in warm affection to the old man--tried to show him that he was, by his efforts to do good and make others better and happier, fulfilling the Lord's directions. He could not understand it so. "I allers try to think," he said, "that 't was me in that boat when he come along. I make b'l'eve that it was out on Streeter Pond, an' I was settin' in the boat, fixin' my lan'in'

net, when I see him on the sh.o.r.e. I think mebbe I 'm that James--for that's my given name, ye know, though they allers call me Jimmy--an' then I hear him callin' me 'James, James.' I can hear him jest 's plain sometimes, when the wind 's blowin' in the trees, an' I jest ache to up an' foller him. But says he, 'I 'll make ye a fisher o' men,' an' he aint done it. I 'm waitin'; mebbe he 'll larn me some day."

He was fond of all living creatures, merciful to all. But his love for our dog Dash became a pa.s.sion, for Dash was an angler.

Who that ever saw him sitting in the boat beside his master, watching with eager eye and whole body trembling with excitement the line as it was cast, the flies as they touched the surface--who can forget old Dash? His fierce excitement at rise of trout, the efforts at self-restraint, the disappointment if the prey escaped, the wild exultation if it was captured, how plainly--he who runs might read--were shown these emotions in eye, in ear, in tail, in whole quivering body! What wonder that it all went straight to the fisher's heart of Jimmy! "I never knowed afore they could be Christians," he said, looking, with tears in his soft, keen eyes, at the every-day scene, and with no faintest thought of irreverence. "I never knowed it, but I'd give a stiffikit o'