Annie Trumbull Slosson

“ 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. ”

“ Across the road, slowly, carefully, came strong men, bearing on a rough hastily made litter of boughs the dear old man. All that could have been done for the most distinguished guest, for the dearest, best-beloved friend, was done for the gentle fisherman. ”

“ Scaret o’ dyin’? Why, I die myself every single year o’ my life.” “Die yourself!” says Reuben. “You ’re foolin’; you’re alive this minute.” “’Course I be,” says the Benjamin; “but that’s neither here nor there,—I’ve died every year sence I can remember.” “Don’t it hurt?” says the boy. “No, it don’t,” says the posy; “it’s real nice. You see, you get kind o’ tired a-holdin’ up your head straight and lookin’ peart and wide awake, and tired o’ the sun shinin’ so hot, and the winds blowin’ you to pieces, and the bees a-takin’ your honey. ”

“ 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 Fishin' Jimmy. ”

“ And the shet-up posy felt real bad; not mean and hateful and begrudgin’, you know, and wantin’ to take away the nice part from the other posies, but sorry, and kind o’ ’shamed.
“Oh, deary me!” she says,—I most forgot to say ’twas a girl posy,—“deary me, what a humly, skimpy, awk’ard thing I be! I ain’t more ’n half made; there ain’t no nice, pretty lining inside o’ me, like them other posies; and on’y my wrong side shows, and that’s jest plain and common. I can’t chirk up folks like the goldenrod and daisies does. Nobody won’t want to pick me and carry me home. ”

“ 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 amusement 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 Fishin' Jimmy on the subject. ”

“ There was a man lived round there jest where he could see the head from his winder. He was a man that things had gone wrong with all along; he’d had lots o’ trouble, and he didn’t take it very easy. He fretted and complained, and blamed it on other folks, and more partic’lar on—God. And one day—he’d jest come to live in them parts—he looked out of his winder, and he see, standin’ out plain ag’in the sky, he see that Stony Head. It looked real ha’sh and hard and stony and dark, and all of a suddent the man thought it was—God. ”

“ Jimmy saw him holding up one paw helplessly, and looking at him with wistful, imploring brown eyes, heard his pitiful whimpering cry for aid, and never doubted his great distress and peril. Was Dash not a fisherman? And fishermen, in Fishin' Jimmy's category, were always true and trusty. So the old man without a second's hesitation started down the steep, smooth decline to the rescue of his friend. ”

“ Folks is pleasanter speakin’, and the victuals ’pears better flavored, and things is comfortabler every way, seems ’s if, and I jedge by that we’re ’most there.” But Billy’d say, a-grumblin’ away, “It’s worse’n worse,—young ones a-botherin’ my life out o’ me, and the birds a-jabberin’ and the posies a-smellin’ till my head aches. Oh, deary me! I’m ’most dead.” So ’t went on and kep’ on. Jack had every mite as hard work as Billy, but he didn’t mind it, he was so full o’ what was comin’ and how good ’t would be to get there. ”

“ So maybe that proves I ain't Low Church,
And maybe it shows I am High.
My old father was never a Churchman,
But a Scotch Presbyterian saint:
Still his white head is shining in heaven,
I don't care who says that it ain't ”

“ We fell into talk at once, Ralph and Waldo rushing 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 Fishin' Jimmy. ”

“ Once there was a boy that was dreadful scaret o’ dyin’. Some folks is that way, you know; they ain’t never done it to know how it feels, and they’re scaret. And this boy was that way. He wa’n’t very rugged, his health was sort o’ slim, and mebbe that made him73 think about sech things more. ’Tany rate, he was terr’ble scaret o’ dyin’. ’Twas a long time ago this was,—the times when posies and creaturs could talk so’s folks could know what they was sayin’. ”

“ I got to find a posy that’s handsomer inside than ’t is outside, one that folks ain’t took no notice of here, ’cause ’twas kind o’ humly and queer to look at, not knowin’ that inside ’twas as handsome as any posy on the airth. Seen any o’ that kind?” says the man.
Well, the shet-up posy was dreadful worked up. “Deary dear!” she says to herself, “now if they’d on’y finished me off inside! I’m the right kind outside, humly and queer enough, but20 there’s nothin’ worth lookin’ at inside,—I’m certin sure o’ that.” ”

“ 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 shore. 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. ”

“ She’d see the dew a-layin’ soft and cool on the other posies’ faces, and the sun a-shinin’ warm on ’em as they held ’em up, and sometimes she’d see a butterfly come down and light on ’em real soft, and kind o’ put his head down to ’em, ’s if he was kissin’ ’em, and she thought ’twould be powerful nice to hold her face up to all them pleasant things. ”

“ Makes you think real hard, that does; leastways, makes me. What’s they15 that way for? If they ain’t never goin’ to open out, what’s the use o’ havin’ the shet-up part so slicked up and nice, with nobody never seem’ it? Folks has different names for ’em, dumb foxgloves, blind genshuns, and all that, but I allers call ’em the shet-up posies.
Well, ’t was one o’ that kind o’ posy I was goin’ to tell you about. ’Twas one o’ the shet-uppest and the buddiest of all on ’em, all blacky-blue and straight up and down, and shet up fast and tight. Nobody’d ever dream’t was pretty inside. ”

“ 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 fishin' boat, an' ask the men to shove out a mite, an' he 'd talk to the folks on shore, the fishin' folks an' their wives an' the boys an' gals playin' on the shore. ”

“ But ’t was one of them posies like what grows down the road, back o’ your pa’s sugar-house, Danny, and don’t come till way towards fall. They’re sort o’ blue, but14 real dark, and they look ’s if they was buds ’stead o’ posies,—only buds opens out, and these doesn’t They’re all shet up close and tight, and they never, never, never opens. Never mind how much sun they get, never mind how much rain or how much drouth, whether it’s cold or hot, them posies stay shet up tight, kind o’ buddy, and not finished and humly. ”

“ It is almost needless to say that as years went on Jimmy came to know many "fishin' min'sters;" for there are many of that school who know our mountain country, and seek it yearly. All these knew and loved the old man. And there were others who had wandered by that sea of Galilee, and fished in the waters of the Holy Land, and with them Fishin' Jimmy dearly loved to talk. ”

“ 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 fishin' part. ”

“ Every speck o’ money he could scrape together he’d put in that bundle, till he couldn’t scursely heft it, ’twas that big and weighed so much. He had plenty o’ chances to make it lighter, for there was folks all along the road that needed it bad,—little child’en that hadn’t no62 clo’es nor no victuals, and sick folks and old folks, every one on ’em needin’ money dreadful bad. But the man never gin ’em a mite. He kep’ it all on his back, a-hurtin’ and weighin’ him down. ”

“ But someways that didn’t help Reuben much as you’d think. “I ain’t a posy,” he think to himself, “and mebbe I wouldn’t come up.”
Well, another time he was settin’ on a stone in the lower pastur’, cryin’ again, and he heerd another cur’us little voice. ’t wa’n’t like the posy’s voice, but ’twas a little, wooly, soft, fuzzy voice, and he see ’t was a caterpillar a-talkin’ to him. And the caterpillar says, in his fuzzy little voice, he says, “What you cryin’ for, Reuben?” And the boy, he says, “I’m powerful scaret o’ dyin’, that’s why,” he says. And that fuzzy caterpillar he laughed. “Dyin’!” ”

“ Mebbe they wa'n't nothin' but shiners, 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 shore 'fore daylight, an' looked off over the pond to where his ole frien's was a-fishin'. Ye see they 'd gone out jest to quiet their minds an' keep up their sperrits; ther 's nothin' like fishin' for that, ye know, an' they 'd ben in a heap o' trubble. ”

“ And another plant told her mebbe her berry was saved from growin’ up a trouble to her, gettin’ bad and hard, with mebbe a worm inside on it, to make her ashamed and sorry. “Oh, no, no!” thinks the mother plant. “My berry’d never got bad and hard, and I’d ’a’ kep’ any worm from touchin’ its little white heart.” Not a single thing the plant-folks said to her done a mite o’ good. Their talk only worried her and pestered her, when she jest wanted to be let alone, so’s she could think about her little berry all to herself. ”

“ 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 washin'; an' I useter say my prayers mos' nights. I wa'n't a bad boy as boys go. But nobody thought o' tellin' me the one thing, jest the one single thing, that 'd ha' made all the diffunce. I knowed about God, an' how he made me an' made the airth, an' everythin', an' once I got thinkin' about that, an' I asked my father if God made the fishes. ”

“ One on ’em was a man that had a real hefty bundle on his back, that he’d put on there hisself,—not all to onct, but a mite to time, for years ‘n’ years. ’Twas a real cur’us bundle, made up out o’ little things in the road that’d got in his way, or hurt him, or put him back. Some on ’em was jest little stones that had hurt his feet, and some was little60 stingin’ weeds that smarted him as he went by ’em, and some was jest mites o’ dirt somebody’d throwed at him, not meanin’ no great o’ harm. ”

“ 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 fish! 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' fishin' diffunt from any other thing in the hull airth. ”

“ And he’d go on and on, a-stumblin’ over stones and fallin’ over logs and a-steppin’ into holes, but stickin’ to it, and forgettin’ everything only that little cryin’ voice ahead of him. Seems ’s if he jest must find that little lost boy or girl, ’s if he’d be more ’n willin’ to give up his own poor lonesome old life to save that child. And, jest ’s he come to thinkin’ that, he see somethin’ ahead53 of him movin’ and in a minute he knowed he’d found the lost child. ”

“ They were young boys, unused to mountain climbing, and their friends were anxious. It was found that Dash had followed them; and just as some one was to be sent in search of them, a boy from the stables brought the information that Fishin' Jimmy had started up the mountain after them as the storm broke. "Said if he could n't be a fisher o' men, mebbe he knowed nuff to ketch boys," went on our informant, seeing nothing more in the speech, full of pathetic meaning to us who knew him, than the idle talk of one whom many considered "lackin'." ”

“ And bimeby he shet hisself up there all alone, and spent his whole50 time jest a-lookin’ at that hard, stony face, and thinkin’ who’t was, and who’d brought all his trouble on him. There was poor folks all ’round that deestrict, but he never done nothin’ to help ’em; let ’em be hungry or thirsty or ailin’, or shet up in jail, or anything, he never helped ’em or done a thing for ’em, ’cause he was a-lookin’ every single minute at that head, and seein’ how stony and hard it was, and bein’ scaret of it and the One he thought it looked like. ”

“ A stately name, indeed, for the little crippled, stunted, helpless creature, and I myself could never think of her by any name but the one the village people used, Story-tell Lib. I had heard of her for two or three summers in my visits to Greenhills. The village folk had talked to me of the little lame girl who told such pretty stories out of her own head, “kind o’ fables that learnt folks things, and helped ’em without bein’ too preachy.” ”