THE SECRETS OF INTIMACY

THERE!  I came within eight letters of telling the name of the
brook, a thing that I am firmly resolved not to do.  If it were an
ordinary fishless little river, or even a stream with nothing better
than grass-pike and sunfish in it, you should have the name and
welcome.  But when a brook contains speckled trout, and when their
presence is known to a very few persons who guard the secret as the
dragon guarded the golden apples of the Hesperides, and when the
size of the trout is large beyond the dreams of hope,--well, when
did you know a true angler who would willingly give away the name of
such a brook as that?  You may find an encourager of indolence in
almost any stream of the South Side, and I wish you joy of your
brook.  But if you want to catch trout in mine you must discover it
for yourself, or perhaps go with me some day, and solemnly swear
secrecy.

That was the way in which the freedom of the stream was conferred
upon me.  There was a small boy in the village, the son of rich but
respectable parents, and an inveterate all-round sportsman, aged
fourteen years, with whom I had formed a close intimacy.  I was
telling him about the pleasure of exploring the idle brook, and
expressing the opinion that in bygone days, (in that mythical "forty
years ago" when all fishing was good), there must have been trout in
it.  A certain look came over the boy's face.  He gazed at me
solemnly, as if he were searching the inmost depths of my character
before he spoke.

"Say, do you want to know something?"

I assured him that an increase of knowledge was the chief aim of my
life.

"Do you promise you won't tell?"

I expressed my readiness to be bound to silence by the most awful
pledge that the law would sanction.

"Wish you may die?"

I not only wished that I might die, but was perfectly certain that I
would die.

"Well, what's the matter with catching trout in that brook now?  Do
you want to go with me next Saturday?  I saw four or five bully ones
last week, and got three."

On the appointed day we made the voyage, landed at the upper bridge,
walked around by the woodpath to the railroad embankment, and began
to worm our way down through the tangled wilderness.  Fly-fishing,
of course, was out of the question.  The only possible method of
angling was to let the line, baited with a juicy "garden hackle,"
drift down the current as far as possible before you, under the
alder-branches and the cat-briers, into the holes and corners of the
stream.  Then, if there came a gentle tug on the rod, you must
strike, to one side or the other, as the branches might allow, and
trust wholly to luck for a chance to play the fish.  Many a trout we
lost that day,--the largest ones, of course,--and many a hook was
embedded in a sunken log, or hopelessly entwined among the boughs
overhead.  But when we came out at the bridge, very wet and
disheveled, we had seven pretty fish, the heaviest about half a
pound.  The Fairy Dell yielded a brace of smaller ones, and
altogether we were reasonably happy as we took up the oars and
pushed out upon the open stream.