I obtained the boy's consent to admit the partner of my life's joys
and two of our children to the secret of the brook, and thereafter,
when we visited it, we took the fly-rod with us.  If by chance
another boat passed us in the estuary, we were never fishing, but
only gathering flowers, or going for a picnic, or taking
photographs.  But when the uninitiated ones had passed by, we would
get out the rod again, and try a few more casts.

One day in particular I remember, when Graygown and little Teddy
were my companions.  We really had no hopes of angling, for the hour
was mid-noon, and the day was warm and still.  But suddenly the
trout, by one of those unaccountable freaks which make their
disposition so interesting and attractive, began to rise all about
us in a bend of the stream.

"Look!" said Teddy; "wherever you see one of those big smiles on the
water, I believe there's a fish!"

Fortunately the rod was at hand.  Graygown and Teddy managed the
boat and the landing-net with consummate skill.  We landed no less
than a dozen beautiful fish at that most unlikely hour and then
solemnly shook hands all around.

There is a peculiar pleasure in doing a thing like this, catching
trout in a place where nobody thinks of looking for them, and at an
hour when everybody believes they cannot be caught.  It is more fun
to take one good fish out of an old, fished-out stream, near at hand
to the village, than to fill a basket from some far-famed and well-
stocked water.  It is the unexpected touch that tickles our sense of
pleasure.  While life lasts, we are always hoping for it and
expecting it.  There is no country so civilized, no existence so
humdrum, that there is not room enough in it somewhere for a lazy,
idle brook, an encourager of indolence, with hope of happy
surprises.