Ellis Parker Butler

“ When the water is high in the brook, the mere rush of the liquid fills the air with sound; when it is lower, the brook tears and frets itself over and against the rocks and boulders of the stream. It is a pleasant sound.
A road winds up the valley—the Green-fly Valley Road—following the easiest course, which is close to the stream for the greater part of the way. In the whole valley there are but eight houses, typical farmhouses of the region, except that one of them has a sleeping-porch built on the west side. This is where Henry K. Hidge lived during his summers. He was a city man ”

“ He allowed old Jed and his wife to live on the farm, and in exchange required them to board him free of charge. He ousted them from the best bedroom and gave them one in a shed addition. They were expected to live in the bedroom and the kitchen. They could take no more boarders during the fishing-season. They were very poor, and growing more feeble each year, of course. Hidge spent the entire summer at the farm.
He had become an old man himself. He fished little and allowed no one to fish his part of the brook. ”

“ He was trying to figure out a way to get the farm and the brook that went with it, for as little as possible. One by one, the farms went info his clutches. As he acquired them, he posted the stream. He closed the stream to outside fishermen. The yearly trips to Green-fly Valley stopped. The Valley had never been prosperous; it became a place of poverty.
Emanuel Carter, Joe's father, alone held out. He was the only man on the brook who could offer fishing to those who came, and there is no question that his brook was overfished. ”

“ He always talked about buying Carter's place. Emanuel always refused. He did it gently, but his answer was always the same: "When me and Ma goes, Joe can do what he wants. I'll keep it for Joe."
JOE did not write often; some people do not. Hidge wrote to Joe. Then Joe did write to his father. It was a lovingly affectionate letter. He said he was doing pretty well and hoped to make a visit home in a year or so, bringing Mary and the baby Emanuel had never seen. He said Hidge had written him and had told him he had offered him to lease the Carter stretch of brook from Emanuel. ”

“ He had been coming some twenty years, boarding for his week or so with the Jed Rascoms and fishing their stream, when Jed had his leg broken by a tree he was felling. It was a bad fracture; he had to go to the city to a hospital. The leg had to be rebroken and set again. It knit slowly. There was a big hospital-bill. ”