章节正文
in the bottom of the box.
"A cane! A cane! Look at that, will ye?" He flashed six inches of
grooved silvery handle before their faces, and three feet of
shining black steel, scarcely thicker than a lead pencil. "Cane!"
he cried scornfully. Then he picked up the box, and opening it
drew out a little machine that shone like a silver watch, and
setting it against the handle, slipped a small slide over each
end, and it held firmly, and shone bravely.
"Oh, Jimmy, what is it?" cried Mary.
"Me cane!" answered Jimmy. "Me new cane from Boston. Didn't you
hear Dannie sayin' what it was? This little arrangemint is my
cicly-meter, like they put on wheels, and buggies now, to tell
how far you've traveled. The way this works, I just tie this silk
thrid to me door knob and off I walks, it a reeling out behind,
and whin I turn back it takes up as I come, and whin I get home I
take the yardstick and measure me string, and be the same token,
it tells me how far I've traveled." As he talked he drew out
another shining length and added it to the first, and then
another and a last, fine as a wheat straw. "These last jints I'm
adding," he explained to Mary, "are so that if I have me cane
whin I'm riding I can stritch it out and touch up me horses with
it. And betimes, if I should iver break me old cane fish pole, I
could take this down to the river, and there, the books call it
`whipping the water.' See! Cane, be Jasus! It's the Jim-dandiest
little fishing rod anybody in these parts iver set eyes on. Lord!
What a beauty!"
He turned to Dannie and shook the shining, slender thing before
his envious eyes.
"Who gets the Black Bass now?" he triumphed in tones of utter
conviction.
There is no use in taking time to explain to any fisherman who
has read thus far that Dannie, the patient; Dannie, the
long-suffering, felt abused. How would you feel yourself?
"The Thread Man might have sent twa," was his thought. "The only
decent treatment he got that nicht was frae me, and if I'd let
Jimmy hit him, he'd gone through the wall. But there never is
anything fra me!"
And that was true. There never was.
Aloud he said, "Dinna bother to hunt the steelyards, Mary. We
winna weigh it until he brings it home."
"Yes, and by gum, I'll bring it with this! Look, here is a
picture of a man in a boat, pullin' in a whale with a pole just
like this," bragged Jimmy.
"Yes," said Dannie. "That's what it's made for. A boat and open
water. If ye are going to fish wi' that thing along the river
we'll have to cut doon all the trees, and that will dry up the
water. That's na for river fishing."
Jimmy was intently studying the book. Mary tried to take the rod
from his hand.
"Let be!" he cried, hanging on. "You'll break it!"
"I guess steel don't break so easy," she said aggrievedly. "I
just wanted to `heft' it."
"Light as a feather," boasted Jimmy. "Fish all day and it won't
tire a man at all. Done--unjoint it and put it in its case, and
not go dragging up everything along the bank like a living
stump-puller. This book says this line will bear twinty pounds
pressure, and sometimes it's takin' an hour to tire out a fish,
if it's a fighter. I bet you the Black Bass is a fighter, from
what we know of him."
"Ye can watch me land him and see what ye think about it,"
suggested Dannie.
Jimmy held the book with one hand and lightly waved the rod with
the other, in a way that would have developed nerves in an
Indian. He laughed absently.
"With me shootin' bait all over his pool with.this?" he asked. "I
guess not!"
"But you can't fish for the Bass with that, Jimmy Malone," cried
Mary hotly. "You agreed to fish fair for the Bass, and it
wouldn't be fair for you to use that, whin Dannie only has his
old cane pole. Dannie, get you a steel pole, too," she begged.
"If Jimmy is going to fish with that, there will be all the more
glory in taking the Bass from him with the pole I have," answered
Dannie.
"You keep out," cried Jimmy angrily to Mary. "It was a fair
bargain. He made it himself. Each man was to fish surface or
deep, and with his own pole and bait. I guess this IS my pole,
ain't it?"
"Yes," said Mary. "But it wasn't yours whin you made that
agreemint. You very well know Dannie expected you to fish with
the same kind of pole and bait that he did; didn't you, Dannie?"
"Yes," said Dannie, "I did. Because I never dreamed of him havin'
any other. But since he has it, I think he's in his rights if he
fishes with it. I dinna care. In the first place he will only
scare the Bass away from him with the racket that reel will make,
and in the second, if he tries to land it with that thing, he
will smash it, and lose the fish. There's a longhandled net to
land things with that goes with those rods. He'd better sent ye
one. Now you'll have to jump into the river and land a fish by
hand if ye hook it."
"That's true!" cried Mary. "Here's one in a picture."
She had snatched the book from Jimmy. He snatched it back.
"Be careful, you'll tear that!" he cried. "I was just going to
say that I would get some fine wire or mosquito bar and make
one."
Dannie's fingers were itching to take the rod, if only for an
instant. He looked at it longingly. But Jimmy was impervious. He
whipped it softly about and eagerly read from the book.
"Tells here about a man takin' a fish that weighed forty pounds
with a pole just like this," he announced. "Scat! Jumpin'
Jehosophat! What do you think of that!"
"Couldn't you fish turn about with it?" inquired Mary.
"Na, we couldna fish turn about with it," answered Dannie. "Na
with that pole. Jimmy would throw a fit if anybody else touched
it. And he's welcome to it. He never in this world will catch the
Black Bass with it. If I only had some way to put juist fifteen
feet more line on my pole, I'd show him how to take the Bass
to-morrow. The way we always have come to lose it is with too
short lines. We have to try to land it before it's tired out and
it's strong enough to break and tear away. It must have ragged
jaws and a dozen pieces of line hanging to it, fra both of us
have hooked it time and again. When it strikes me, if I only
could give it fifteen feet more line, I could land it."
"Can't you fix some way?" asked Mary.
"I'll try," answered Dannie.
"And in the manetime, I'd just be givin' it twinty off me dandy
little reel, and away goes me with Mr. Bass," said Jimmy. "I must
take it to town and have its picture took to sind the Thrid Man."
And that was the last straw. Dannie had given up being allowed to
touch the rod, and was on his way to unhitch his team and do the
evening work. The day had been trying and just for the moment he
forgot everything save that his longing fingers had not touched
that beautiful little fishing rod.
"The Boston man forgot another thing," he said. "The Dude who
shindys 'round with those things in pictures, wears a damn,
dinky, little pleated coat!"
Chapter VIII
WHEN THE BLACK BASS 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 Bass, 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. Bass, 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
canal 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 Bass."
"Not much, Dannie don't `gets the Bass,'" 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. Bass is layin' in thim bass weeds right out there, foreninst
the pie- plant bed, and the bait strikes the water at the idge,
"A cane! A cane! Look at that, will ye?" He flashed six inches of
grooved silvery handle before their faces, and three feet of
shining black steel, scarcely thicker than a lead pencil. "Cane!"
he cried scornfully. Then he picked up the box, and opening it
drew out a little machine that shone like a silver watch, and
setting it against the handle, slipped a small slide over each
end, and it held firmly, and shone bravely.
"Oh, Jimmy, what is it?" cried Mary.
"Me cane!" answered Jimmy. "Me new cane from Boston. Didn't you
hear Dannie sayin' what it was? This little arrangemint is my
cicly-meter, like they put on wheels, and buggies now, to tell
how far you've traveled. The way this works, I just tie this silk
thrid to me door knob and off I walks, it a reeling out behind,
and whin I turn back it takes up as I come, and whin I get home I
take the yardstick and measure me string, and be the same token,
it tells me how far I've traveled." As he talked he drew out
another shining length and added it to the first, and then
another and a last, fine as a wheat straw. "These last jints I'm
adding," he explained to Mary, "are so that if I have me cane
whin I'm riding I can stritch it out and touch up me horses with
it. And betimes, if I should iver break me old cane fish pole, I
could take this down to the river, and there, the books call it
`whipping the water.' See! Cane, be Jasus! It's the Jim-dandiest
little fishing rod anybody in these parts iver set eyes on. Lord!
What a beauty!"
He turned to Dannie and shook the shining, slender thing before
his envious eyes.
"Who gets the Black Bass now?" he triumphed in tones of utter
conviction.
There is no use in taking time to explain to any fisherman who
has read thus far that Dannie, the patient; Dannie, the
long-suffering, felt abused. How would you feel yourself?
"The Thread Man might have sent twa," was his thought. "The only
decent treatment he got that nicht was frae me, and if I'd let
Jimmy hit him, he'd gone through the wall. But there never is
anything fra me!"
And that was true. There never was.
Aloud he said, "Dinna bother to hunt the steelyards, Mary. We
winna weigh it until he brings it home."
"Yes, and by gum, I'll bring it with this! Look, here is a
picture of a man in a boat, pullin' in a whale with a pole just
like this," bragged Jimmy.
"Yes," said Dannie. "That's what it's made for. A boat and open
water. If ye are going to fish wi' that thing along the river
we'll have to cut doon all the trees, and that will dry up the
water. That's na for river fishing."
Jimmy was intently studying the book. Mary tried to take the rod
from his hand.
"Let be!" he cried, hanging on. "You'll break it!"
"I guess steel don't break so easy," she said aggrievedly. "I
just wanted to `heft' it."
"Light as a feather," boasted Jimmy. "Fish all day and it won't
tire a man at all. Done--unjoint it and put it in its case, and
not go dragging up everything along the bank like a living
stump-puller. This book says this line will bear twinty pounds
pressure, and sometimes it's takin' an hour to tire out a fish,
if it's a fighter. I bet you the Black Bass is a fighter, from
what we know of him."
"Ye can watch me land him and see what ye think about it,"
suggested Dannie.
Jimmy held the book with one hand and lightly waved the rod with
the other, in a way that would have developed nerves in an
Indian. He laughed absently.
"With me shootin' bait all over his pool with.this?" he asked. "I
guess not!"
"But you can't fish for the Bass with that, Jimmy Malone," cried
Mary hotly. "You agreed to fish fair for the Bass, and it
wouldn't be fair for you to use that, whin Dannie only has his
old cane pole. Dannie, get you a steel pole, too," she begged.
"If Jimmy is going to fish with that, there will be all the more
glory in taking the Bass from him with the pole I have," answered
Dannie.
"You keep out," cried Jimmy angrily to Mary. "It was a fair
bargain. He made it himself. Each man was to fish surface or
deep, and with his own pole and bait. I guess this IS my pole,
ain't it?"
"Yes," said Mary. "But it wasn't yours whin you made that
agreemint. You very well know Dannie expected you to fish with
the same kind of pole and bait that he did; didn't you, Dannie?"
"Yes," said Dannie, "I did. Because I never dreamed of him havin'
any other. But since he has it, I think he's in his rights if he
fishes with it. I dinna care. In the first place he will only
scare the Bass away from him with the racket that reel will make,
and in the second, if he tries to land it with that thing, he
will smash it, and lose the fish. There's a longhandled net to
land things with that goes with those rods. He'd better sent ye
one. Now you'll have to jump into the river and land a fish by
hand if ye hook it."
"That's true!" cried Mary. "Here's one in a picture."
She had snatched the book from Jimmy. He snatched it back.
"Be careful, you'll tear that!" he cried. "I was just going to
say that I would get some fine wire or mosquito bar and make
one."
Dannie's fingers were itching to take the rod, if only for an
instant. He looked at it longingly. But Jimmy was impervious. He
whipped it softly about and eagerly read from the book.
"Tells here about a man takin' a fish that weighed forty pounds
with a pole just like this," he announced. "Scat! Jumpin'
Jehosophat! What do you think of that!"
"Couldn't you fish turn about with it?" inquired Mary.
"Na, we couldna fish turn about with it," answered Dannie. "Na
with that pole. Jimmy would throw a fit if anybody else touched
it. And he's welcome to it. He never in this world will catch the
Black Bass with it. If I only had some way to put juist fifteen
feet more line on my pole, I'd show him how to take the Bass
to-morrow. The way we always have come to lose it is with too
short lines. We have to try to land it before it's tired out and
it's strong enough to break and tear away. It must have ragged
jaws and a dozen pieces of line hanging to it, fra both of us
have hooked it time and again. When it strikes me, if I only
could give it fifteen feet more line, I could land it."
"Can't you fix some way?" asked Mary.
"I'll try," answered Dannie.
"And in the manetime, I'd just be givin' it twinty off me dandy
little reel, and away goes me with Mr. Bass," said Jimmy. "I must
take it to town and have its picture took to sind the Thrid Man."
And that was the last straw. Dannie had given up being allowed to
touch the rod, and was on his way to unhitch his team and do the
evening work. The day had been trying and just for the moment he
forgot everything save that his longing fingers had not touched
that beautiful little fishing rod.
"The Boston man forgot another thing," he said. "The Dude who
shindys 'round with those things in pictures, wears a damn,
dinky, little pleated coat!"
Chapter VIII
WHEN THE BLACK BASS 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 Bass, 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. Bass, 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
canal 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 Bass."
"Not much, Dannie don't `gets the Bass,'" 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. Bass is layin' in thim bass weeds right out there, foreninst
the pie- plant bed, and the bait strikes the water at the idge,
- opening [´əupəniŋ]
n.开放；开端 a.开始的 (初中英语单词) - firmly [´fə:mli] ad.坚固地，稳定地 (初中英语单词)
- measure [´meʒə] n.量度；范围 vt.测量 (初中英语单词)
- slender [´slendə] a.细长的；微薄的 (初中英语单词)
- fisherman [´fiʃəmən] n.渔民，渔夫，打鱼人 (初中英语单词)
- treatment [´tri:tmənt] n.待遇；对待；治疗 (初中英语单词)
- bother [´bɔðə] v.打扰 n.麻烦(事) (初中英语单词)
- lightly [´laitli] ad.轻微地，稍微 (初中英语单词)
- mosquito [məs´ki:təu] n.蚊子 (初中英语单词)
- softly [´sɔftli] ad.软化地；柔和地 (初中英语单词)
- eagerly [´i:gəli] ad.渴望地，急切地 (初中英语单词)
- welcome [´welkəm] a.受欢迎的；可喜的 (初中英语单词)
- hooked [hukt] a.钩状的；上瘾的 (初中英语单词)
- rubber [´rʌbə] n.(摩)擦的人；橡皮 (初中英语单词)
- anywhere [´eniweə] ad.无论何处；任何地方 (初中英语单词)
- hanging [´hæŋiŋ] n.绞刑 a.悬挂着的 (高中英语单词)
- fighter [´faitə] n.战士；战斗机 (高中英语单词)
- angrily [´æŋgrili] ad.生气地；愤怒地 (高中英语单词)
- racket [´rækit] n.(网球等的)拍；球拍 (高中英语单词)
- longing [´lɔŋiŋ] n.&a.渴望(的) (高中英语单词)
- saying [´seiŋ, ´sei-iŋ] n.言语；言论；格言 (高中英语单词)
- silvery [´silvəri] a.银一般的 (英语四级单词)
- traveled [´trævəld] a.见面广的；旅客多的 (英语四级单词)
- fishing [´fiʃiŋ] n.钓鱼；捕鱼；渔业 (英语四级单词)
- envious [´enviəs] a.妒忌的，羡慕的 (英语四级单词)
- intently [in´tentli] ad.专心地 (英语四级单词)
- trying [´traiiŋ] a.难堪的；费劲的 (英语四级单词)
- betimes [bi´taimz] ad.早；准时；不久以后 (英语六级单词)
- taking [´teikiŋ] a.迷人的 n.捕获物 (英语六级单词)
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