Chapter VIII

WHEN THE BLACK Ba.s.s STRUCK

"Lots of fish down in the brook, All you need is a rod, and a line, and a hook,"

hummed Jimmy, still lovingly fingering his possessions.

"Did Dannie iver say a thing like that to you before?" asked Mary.

"Oh, he's dead sore," explained Jimmy. "He thinks he should have had a jinted rod, too."

"And so he had," replied Mary. "You said yoursilf that you might have killed that man if Dannie hadn't showed you that you were wrong."

"You must think stuff like this is got at the tin-cint store," said Jimmy.

"Oh, no I don't!" said Mary. "I expect it cost three or four dollars."

"Three or four dollars," sneered Jimmy. "All the sinse a woman has!

Feast your eyes on this book and rade that just this little reel alone cost fifteen, and there's no telling what the rod is worth. Why it's turned right out of pure steel, same as if it were wood. Look for yoursilf."

"Thanks, no! I'm afraid to touch it," said Mary.

"Oh, you are sore too!" laughed Jimmy. "With all that money in it, I should think you could see why I wouldn't want it broke."

"You've sat there and whipped it around for an hour. Would it break it for me or Dannie to do the same thing? If it had been his, you'd have had a worm on it and been down to the river trying it for him by now."

"Worm!" scoffed Jimmy. "A worm! That's a good one! Idjit! You don't fish with worms with a jinted rod."

"Well what do you fish with? Humming birds?"

"No. You fish with--" Jimmy stopped and eyed Mary dubiously. "You fish with a lot of things," he continued. "Some of thim come in little books and they look like moths, and some like snake-faders, and some of them are buck-tail and bits of tin, painted to look shiny. Once there was a man in town who had a minnie made of rubber and all painted up just like life. There were hooks on its head, and on its back, and its belly, and its tail, so's that if a fish snapped at it anywhere it got hooked."

"I should say so!" exclaimed Mary. "It's no fair way to fish, to use more than one hook. You might just as well take a net and wade in and seine out the fish as to take a lot of hooks and rake thim out."

"Well, who's going to take a lot of hooks and rake thim out?"

"I didn't say anybody was. I was just saying it wouldn't be fair to the fish if they did."

"Course I wouldn't fish with no riggin' like that, when Dannie only has one old hook. Whin we fish for the Ba.s.s, I won't use but one hook either. All the same, I'm going to have some of those fancy baits. I'm going to get Jim Skeels at the drug store to order thim for me. I know just how you do," said Jimmy flourishing the rod. "You put on your bait and quite a heavy sinker, and you wind it up to the ind of your rod, and thin you stand up in your boat----"

"Stand up in your boat!"

"I wish you'd let me finish!--or on the bank, and you take this little whipper-snapper, and you touch the spot on the reel that relases the thrid, and you give the rod a little toss, aisy as throwin' away chips, and off maybe fifty feet your bait hits the water, 'spat!' and 'snap!'

goes Mr. Ba.s.s, and 'stick!' goes the hook. See?"

"What I see is that if you want to fish that way in the Wabash, you'll have to wait until the dredge goes through and they make a ca.n.a.l out of it; for be the time you'd throwed fifty feet, and your fish had run another fifty, there'd be just one hundred snags, and logs, and stumps between you; one for every foot of the way. It must look pretty on deep water, where it can be done right, but I bet anything that if you go to fooling with that on our river, Dannie gets the Ba.s.s."

"Not much, Dannie don't 'gets the Ba.s.s,'" said Jimmy confidently. "Just you come out here and let me show you how this works. Now you see, I put me sinker on the ind of the thrid, no hook of course, for practice, and I touch this little spring here, and give me little rod a whip and away goes me bait, slick as grase. Mr. Ba.s.s is layin' in thim ba.s.s weeds right out there, foreninst the pie-plant bed, and the bait strikes the water at the idge, see! and 'snap,' he takes it and sails off slow, to swally it at leisure. Here's where I don't pull a morsel.

Jist let him rin and swally, and whin me line is well out and he has me bait all digistid, 'yank,' I give him the round-up, and THIN, the fun begins. He leps clear of the water and I see he's tin pound. If he rins from me, I give him rope, and if he rins to, I dig in, workin' me little machane for dear life to take up the thrid before it slacks.

Whin he sees me, he makes a dash back, and I just got to relase me line and let him go, because he'd bust this little silk thrid all to thunder if I tried to force him onpleasant to his intintions, and so we kape it up until he's plum wore out and comes a promenadin' up to me boat, bank I mane, and I scoops him in, and that's sport, Mary! That's MAN'S fishin'! Now watch! He's in thim ba.s.s weeds before the pie-plant, like I said, and I'm here on the bank, and I THINK he's there, so I give me little jinted rod a whip and a swing----"

Jimmy gave the rod a whip and a swing. The sinker shot in air, struck the limb of an apple tree and wound a dozen times around it. Jimmy said things and Mary giggled. She also noticed that Dannie had stopped work and was standing in the barn door watching intently. Jimmy climbed the tree, unwound the line and tried again.

"I didn't notice that domn apple limb stickin' out there," he said.

"Now you watch! Right out there among the ba.s.s weeds foreninst the pie-plant."

To avoid another limb, Jimmy aimed too low and the sinker shot under the well platform not ten feet from him.

"Lucky you didn't get fast in the ba.s.s weeds," said Mary as Jimmy reeled in.

"Will, I got to get me range," explained Jimmy. "This time----"

Jimmy swung too high. The spring slipped from under his unaccustomed thumb. The sinker shot above and behind him and became entangled in the eaves, while yards of the fine silk line flew off the spinning reel and dropped in tangled ma.s.ses at his feet, and in an effort to do something Jimmy reversed the reel and it wound back on tangles and all until it became completely clogged. Mary had sat down on the back steps to watch the exhibition. Now, she stood up to laugh.

"And THAT'S just what will happen to you at the river," she said.

"While you are foolin' with that thing, which ain't for rivers, and which you don't know beans about handlin', Dannie will haul in the Ba.s.s, and serve you right, too!"

"Mary," said Jimmy, "I niver struck ye in all me life, but if ye don't go in the house, and shut up, I'll knock the head off ye!"

"I wouldn't be advisin' you to," she said. "Dannie is watching you."

Jimmy glanced toward the barn in time to see Dannie's shaking shoulders as he turned from the door. With unexpected patience, he firmly closed his lips and went after a ladder. By the time he had the sinker loose and the line untangled, supper was ready. By the time he had mastered the reel, and could land the sinker accurately in front of various imaginary beds of ba.s.s weeds, Dannie had finished the night work in both stables and gone home. But his back door stood open and therefrom there protruded the point of a long, heavy cane fish pole. By the light of a lamp on his table, Dannie could be seen working with pincers and a ball of wire.

"I wonder what he thinks he can do?" said Jimmy.

"I suppose he is trying to fix some way to get that fifteen feet more line he needs," replied Mary.

When they went to bed the light still burned and the broad shoulders of Dannie bent over the pole. Mary had fallen asleep, but she was awakened by Jimmy slipping from the bed. He went to the window and looked toward Dannie's cabin. Then he left the bedroom and she could hear him crossing to the back window of the next room. Then came a smothered laugh and he softly called her. She went to him.

Dannie's figure stood out clear and strong in the moonlight, in his wood-yard. His black outline looked unusually powerful in the silvery whiteness surrounding it.

He held his fishing pole in both hands and swept a circle about him that would have required considerable s.p.a.ce on Lake Michigan, and made a cast toward the barn. The line ran out smoothly and evenly, and through the gloom Mary saw Jimmy's figure straighten and his lips close in surprise. Then Dannie began taking in line. That process was so slow, Jimmy doubled up and laughed again.

"Be lookin' at that, will ye?" he heaved. "What does the domn fool think the Black Ba.s.s will be doin' while he is takin' in line on that young windla.s.s?"

"There'd be no room on the river to do that," answered Mary serenely.

"Dannie wouldn't be so foolish as to try. All he wants now is to see if his line will run, and it will. Whin he gets to the river, he'll swing his bait where he wants it with his pole, like he always does, and whin the Ba.s.s strikes he'll give it the extra fifteen feet more line he said he needed, and thin he'll have a pole and line with which he can land it."

"Not on your life he won't!" said Jimmy.

He opened the back door and stepped out just as Dannie raised the pole again.

"Hey, you! Quit raisin' Cain out there!" yelled Jimmy. "I want to get some sleep."

Across the night, tinged neither with chagrin nor rancor, boomed the big voice of Dannie.

"Believe I have my extra line fixed so it works all right," he said.

"Awful sorry if I waked you. Thought I was quiet."