Picker

“ They were lazy fellows, the pickerel. One might, if he were a lucky and persevering fisherman, take a trout in the swift waters of the brook; but for the pickerel, theirs was not the joy of such exertion. In the dark, silent places along Mill stream, where never a ripple disturbed their seclusion, you might see one, now and then, lying motionless in the shadow of an overhanging branch, at the surface of the water, as though asleep. ”

“ After he has left his adored, his face wears for the rest of the day the expression with which he has risen from her feet, and more than once I have felt like touching his elbow, as you would that of a man who has inadvertently come into a drawing-room in his overshoes. You say he has offered our friend everything; but, my dear fellow, he has not everything to offer her. He evidently is as amiable as the morning, but the lady has no taste for daylight.”
“I assure you Pickering is a very interesting fellow,” I said. ”

“ He always pushed himself forward, cried the loudest and longest, and so took the greater part of the food carried to the nest; and one day, while he was still quite awkward and uncertain, he climbed to the edge and reached so far that he fell. He rolled down the river bank, splash! into the water; and a hungry old pickerel, sunning in the weeds, finished him at a snap. He made a morsel so fat, sweet, and juicy that the pickerel lingered close for a week, waiting to see if there would be any more accidents. ”

“ It lies in wait for its prey on the bottom, perfectly motionless like a waterlogged stick, watching everything that moves, with fierce, hungry eyes. Oftentimes when we were fishing for some other kinds over the edge of the boat, a pickerel that we had not noticed would come like a bolt of lightning and seize the fish we had caught before we could get it into the boat. The very first pickerel that I ever caught jumped into the air to seize a small fish dangling on my line, and, missing its aim, fell plump into the boat as if it had dropped from the sky. ”

“ The perch swallows the grub-worm, the pickerel swallows the perch, and the fisherman swallows the pickerel; and so all the chinks in the scale of being are filled. ”

“ Lines are drawn across the bog, from eight to twenty feet apart, as a guide for keeping in place those pickers [Pg 23] who incline otherwise to the right or left, as “spots” thick or thin allure or repel them in their eagerness “to fill the measure.” Then, placing as many pickers within the lines as can have sufficient “elbow room,” picking length-wise, they proceed to pick.
An overseer is needed for every twenty-five pickers, to see that the work is properly done, each in his or her own place, and that all are picking clean from the vines, and from the “bottom;” ”

“ The bait is dropped into the opening among the lily-pads, and sinking rapidly, by the weight of the shot, toward the bottom, is started up again by a twitch of the rod, and goes bobbing up and down till the pickerel, rendered frantic by such an absurd performance, can stand it no longer, and with one furious rush determines to end the gyrations of such a silly creature. Never wait for pickerel to gorge the bait, discard such old fogy notions, and by the aid of a strong rod and line, pull him out at once. ”

“ Indeed, Pickering spoke of attending to some business matter in person on Saturday, or on Monday for certain. Why, then, the vicar’s visit? What did it portend? People gathered in small groups and their [Pg 131] voices softened. By contrast, the blare of lively music and the whistle of the roundabout were intolerably loud.
In the quiet room at the back of the hotel, with its scent of iodoform mingling with the sweet breath of the garden wafted in through an open window, Pickering moved restlessly in bed. ”

“ At the third or fourth cast we plainly saw a huge pickerel rise, shut his immense mouth over bait, hooks, and a few inches of chain, turn lazily, and head for the bottom, where Mr. D. let him rest a minute, and then struck steadily but strongly. The subsequent struggle depended largely on main strength, though there was a good deal of skill and cool judgment shown in the handling and landing of the fish. A pickerel of forty pounds or more is not to be snatched out of the water on his first mad rush; something must be yielded—and with no reel there is little chance of giving line. ”

“ If, however, it touches a weed, it will be sprung, and then you cannot catch a fish at all till it is reset. It was invented to avoid the hook’s coming out of the pickerel’s mouth, which, from the nature of the latter, it is apt to do, a difficulty which old, slow, poky, English punt [177] fishers endeavor to remedy by allowing the pike or jack, as they call him, to gorge the bait. A pickerel, like a trout, rushes up, strikes his prey, and immediately returns with it to his haunt ”

“ A less anxious, but infinitely more busy time has come when the picking arrives. Responsible gangers have to be employed, and hop-cutters. The hop-cutter cuts through the bines, pulls up the poles, and lays them across the bins of sacking into which the pickers strip the flowers of the hop. ”

“ The pickerel had felt the sharp point of that small hook, and he was now darting off toward the mouth of the creek.
The fat man took it coolly, holding his rod with one [Pg 593] hand, while the other rested on the large bright brass reel, that was now spinning around as the fish drew the line out.
The tough little rod was bending, but there was no great strain upon it.
"He won't run far. Here he comes back again." ”

“ I have collected it on the east coast of Florida of a beautiful emerald-green coloration, without distinct dark markings, and with orange-colored lower fins—a most beautiful fish.
Although an interesting little fish, it is of no importance to anglers and is merely mentioned here, with the little western pickerel, to enable the reader to identify the different members of the pike family. It spawns early in the spring. It seldom grows beyond a foot in length, and is usually much smaller. Fishing for it is on the same plane with sunfishing, and the lightest tackle should be employed. ”

“ The pickerel family, like most of the fish of America, have never been properly classified by the scientific, nor named by the vulgar. In fact, they, with the exception of the mascallonge, appear to have no specific names in common parlance, while naturalists have vague or no acquaintance with their peculiarities. Sportsmen and others speak of catching pickerel, whether it be in the St. Lawrence, Great Northern Pickerel, which seem to
NORTHERN PICKEREL—Esox lucioides. ”

“ All the pickerel family are readily distinguishable by their having but one dorsal, and that opposite the anal fin and near the tail, and the sportsman acquainted with one will readily recognize all the tribe. ”

“ The pike-perch, which is variously termed the pickerel, pike of the lakes, glass-eye, big-eyed pike, and pickering, is taken in immense numbers in Lakes Erie and Huron, was formerly numerous in the Ohio, and inhabits to a greater or less degree the ponds or sluggish waters of that section. It is a savage fish, biting voraciously at bait or trolling-tackle, and where better fish are scarce, is regarded as a piscatory delicacy; but its play is weak and dull, and as it is taken with strong tackle, its capture requires neither the skill nor experience that lend the principal charm to angling ”

“ There are five species of the pike family. One inhabits the fresh waters of both continents; the other four are American species. The muskallunge, attaining a length of eight feet, is the finest and largest of the pikes. It is found in the Great Lake region and, occasionally, in the Ohio valley. The smaller varieties are commonly called pickerel in the United States. All rank high as food. ”

“ The red ibis, soldier, Abbey, polka. Montreal, and coachman are all good pickerel flies, if cast toward the dusk of evening.
Skittering is a favorite method of fishing for the pickerel in weedy ponds. It is practised with a long cane rod, and line of about the same length as the rod, with or without a reel. A spoon bait, [152] frog, or a piece of white bacon-rind cut in the semblance of a fish, or a frog's hind legs, skinned, are skittered or fluttered on the surface near the lily-pads and pickerel weeds. ”

“ The pickerel, on taking the bait, should be allowed to play out the whole line before being pulled in, as the fish requires this time to fully swallow his prey, after which the hook is sure to hold him firmly. Twenty or thirty lines may thus be attended at once, the bush or twig acting the part of a tip-up, or sentinel.
Pickerel spearing is another successful mode of capture during the winter months. A large hole is made in the ice, in about two feet of water, and covered by a spacious box or board hut, six or seven feet square, and provided with a door. ”

“ Pickerbaugh apparently believed that this research would take six weeks; Martin had hoped to do it in two years; and with the present interruptions it would require two hundred, by which time the Pickerbaughs would have eradicated syphilis and made the test useless. ”

“ And if you start to go to that country remember first you must sell everything you have, pigs, pastures, pepper pickers, pitchforks, put the spot cash money in a ragbag and go to the railroad station and ask the ticket agent for a 17 long slick yellow leather slab ticket with a blue spanch across it. ”

“ And more than that,” says he, “I can make a weal a beef-steak, or a beef-steak a kidney, or any one on ‘em a mutton, at a minute’s notice, just as the market changes, and appetites wary!”’
‘He must have been a very ingenious young man, that, Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick, with a slight shudder.
‘Just was, sir,’ replied Mr. Weller, continuing his occupation of emptying the basket, ‘and the pies was beautiful. Tongue—, well that’s a wery good thing when it ain’t a woman’s. Bread—knuckle o’ ham, reg’lar picter—cold beef in slices, wery good. ”

“ Weller, senior, turning suddenly to Mr. Pickwick, said—
‘Wery queer life is a pike-keeper’s, sir.’
‘A what?’ said Mr. Pickwick.
‘A pike-keeper.’
‘What do you mean by a pike-keeper?’ inquired Mr. Peter Magnus.
‘The old ‘un means a turnpike-keeper, gen’l’m’n,’ observed Mr. Samuel Weller, in explanation.
‘Oh,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘I see. Yes; very curious life. Very uncomfortable.’
‘They’re all on ‘em men as has met vith some disappointment in life,’ said Mr. Weller, senior. ”

“ At the special request of Secretary Seward, who wrote six letters about it to the Governors of all the States, I have been appointed a picket of the army of the Upper Potomac. In your natural ignorance, my boy, you may not know why a man is called a picket. He is called a picket, my boy, because, if anybody drops a pocket-book or a watch anywhere, his natural gifts would cause him to pick-it up. ”

“ In our search for the pickle genius we hadn’t dreamed for the tail end of a second that anyone short of a first-class cook had made the poochy pickles. And we had sort of pictured in our minds a spotless kitchen, puddled with sunshine, with a line-up of shiny aluminum kettles on the shelves, clever little ruffled doo-dads at the windows, a gurgling canary, and, to finish off, an old rag rug of many colors in the middle of the kitchen floor. ”

“ Perhaps you will ask, "What is a picket?" The papers constantly speak of our pickets being "thrown out," or the enemy's being "driven in," but never tell what sort of creatures these pickets are. The pickets are sentinels beyond the camp guard, and toward the enemy. There may be a chain of pickets stretching over the country; and the picket guard may be very large, or it may consist of a sergeant and six men. These are divided into three "relieves," which constitute the "videttes," or "lookout," as we might translate it. ”

“ Seeing that it was useless to argue with him further, I sort of resigned myself to my fate as his pickle partner.
“I have a hunch,” says I, “that it’s going to be a whole lot worse than that. A Pickle Parlor! We’ll be the laugh of the town.” ”

“ Do not let our medical friends feel too indignant if I recommend to these same women the manufacture of pickles. The use of pickles, like the use of wine, may be a questionable thing; but, like liquors, they are a large article of trade: and, if we must have them, why not have them made of wholesome fruit, in good cider-vinegar, with a touch of the grandmotherly seasoning that we all remember, rather than of stinted gherkins, soured by vitriol and greened by copper? ”

“ Pickwick.
‘Ah, my dear Sir,’ said little Mr. Perker, bustling up from his chair. ‘Well, my dear sir, and what’s the news about your matter, eh? Anything more about our friends in Freeman’s Court? They’ve not been sleeping, I know that. Ah, they’re very smart fellows; very smart, indeed.’
As the little man concluded, he took an emphatic pinch of snuff, as a tribute to the smartness of Messrs. Dodson and Fogg.
‘They are great scoundrels,’ said Mr. Pickwick. ”

“ Try one of those pickles in the jar there, won’t you. I always like to have a boy enjoy himself when he comes to see me,” said the grocery man, winking to a man who was filling an old fashioned tin box with tobacco out of the pail, who winked back as much as to say, “if that boy eats a pickle on top of them mumps we will have a circus, sure.”
“You can’t play no pickle on me, not when I have the mumps. Ma passed the pickles to me this morning, and I took one mouthful, and like to had the lockjaw. ”

“ No, she told me, after tasting the pickles, they weren’t out of her kitchen. Nor could she help me. But she’d like to buy some of the pickles, she said, if it turned out that there were more of the same kind for sale. I went to three women in turn. No success at all. [21] But here’s an important point, Jerry: Every woman who sampled the pickles wanted to buy some. So you can see the big money that’s waiting for us if we can find out who this unknown pickle genius is and win her over to our scheme.”
There’s nothing I like better than mystery stuff. ”