Joe Wayring at Home; or, The Adventures of a Fly-Rod

IN WHICH I INTRODUCE MYSELF.

I AM called “Old Durability”; but for fear my name may prove misleading, and cause those of my readers who are not acquainted with me to fall into the error of supposing that I am a very aged article, I desire to say, at the outset, that I am only four years old, and that I have been in active service just sixteen months. During that time I have seen a world of excitement and adventure, and have performed some exploits of which any fly-rod might be justly proud. I have hooked, at one cast, and successfully landed, two black bass, weighing together eight and a quarter pounds; I have so often been dumped in the cold waters of mountain lakes and streams that it is a wonder my ferrules were not rusted out long ago; I have been dragged about among snags and lily-pads, by enraged trout, pickerel and bass; I have been stolen from my lawful owner, been kept a prisoner by boys and tramps who either could not or would not take care of me, and one of my joints has been broken. Of course, I was skillfully patched up, but, like the man whose arm has been fractured, I am not quite as good as I used to be, and am reluctant to exert all my strength for fear that I shall break again in the same place. I can’t throw a fly as far as I could when I took my finest string of trout in front of the “sportsmen’s home” at Indian Lake, and when I am called upon to make the attempt, my ferrules groan and creak as if they were about to give away and let me fall to pieces. For this my master laid me up in ordinary (that is what sailors say of a war vessel when she goes out of commission, and is laid up in port to remain idle there until her services are needed again), saying, as he did so, that my days of usefulness were over, but that he would keep me for the good I had done.

After having led an active life among the hills, lakes and forest streams almost ever since I could remember, you may be sure that I did not relish treatment of this sort. After doing my level best for my master, and landing more than one fish for him that he ought to have lost because he handled me so awkwardly—after going with him through some of the most exciting scenes of his life, and submitting to treatment that would have used up almost any other rod, must I be laid upon the shelf in a dark closet and left to my gloomy reflections, while a new favorite accompanied my master to the woods, caught the trout for his dinner, slept under his blanket, and listened to the thrilling and amusing stories that were told around the camp-fire? I resolved to prevent it, if I could; so when my master took me out of my case one day to assist him in catching a muskalonge he had seen in the lake back of his father’s house, I nerved myself to do valiant battle, hoping to show him that there was plenty of good hard work left in me, if he only knew how to bring it out.

The muskalonge, which was lurking in the edge of the lily-pads ready to pounce upon the first unwary fish that approached his lair, took the frog that was on the hook at the very first cast, and then began the hardest struggle of my life. My rheumatic joints complained loudly as the heavy fish darted up and down the lake, and then dove to the bottom in his mad efforts to escape, but I held on the best I knew how until he leaped full length out of the water, and tried to shake the hook from his mouth; then I was ready to give up the contest. He was the largest fish I ever saw.

“Scotland’s a burning!” exclaimed Joe. “Isn’t he a beauty? If this old rod was as good as he used to be, wouldn’t I have a prize in a few minutes from now?”

I ought to have told you before that my master’s name is Joe Wayring; and a right good boy he is, too, as you will find before my story is ended. Nearly all the young fellows of my acquaintance, and I know some of the best there are in the country, have some favorite word or expression which always rises to their lips whenever they are surprised, excited or angry, and the words I have just quoted are the ones Joe always used under such circumstances. No matter how exasperated he was you never could get any thing stronger out of him.

I will not dwell upon the particulars of that fight (my joints ache yet whenever I think of it), for I set out to talk about other matters. It will be enough to say that I held fast to the fish until he became exhausted and was drawn through the lily-pads to the bank; then the gaff-hook came to my assistance, and he was safely landed. He was a monster. I afterward learned that he weighed a trifle over nineteen pounds. Wasn’t that something of an exploit for an eight ounce rod who had been threatened with the retired list on account of supposed disability? I was so nearly doubled up by the long-continued strain that had been brought to bear upon me, that when my master threw me down on the ground while he gave his prize his quietus with the heavy handle of the gaff-hook, I could not immediately straighten out again, as every well-conditioned rod is expected to do under similar circumstances.

“Why, what in the world have you got there?” cried Joe’s mother, as the boy entered the kitchen, carrying me in one hand and dragging the fish after him with the other. She seemed to be a little afraid of the young fisherman’s prize, and that was hardly to be wondered at, for his mouth was open, and it was full of long, sharp teeth.

“It’s the biggest muskalonge that was ever caught in this lake,” replied Joe, as he laid me down upon a chair and took both hands to deposit his fish upon the table. “Didn’t he fight, though? I say, Uncle Joe,” he added, addressing himself to a dignified gentleman in spectacles, who just then came into the room with the morning’s paper in his hand, “I shall not need that new split bamboo you promised me for my birthday, though I thank you for your kind offer, all the same. This old rod is good for at least one more summer on Indian Lake. There is plenty of back-bone left in him yet.”

Uncle Joe was a rich old bachelor and very fond of his namesake, Joe Wayring, on whom he lavished all the affection he would have given to his own children, if he had had any. He was an enthusiastic angler, a skillful and untiring bear and deer hunter, and he generally timed his trips to the woods and mountains so that Joe and some of his particular friends could go with him.

“He is the most durable rod I ever saw,” added my master.

“Well, then, call him ‘Old Durability’,” suggested Uncle Joe.

The boy said he thought that name would just suit me, and from that day to this I have been known by every one who is acquainted with me as “Old Durability”.

Having introduced myself, because there was no one to perform the ceremony for me, and told you how I came by my cognomen, I will now go back and relate how I made the acquaintance of my master, Joe Wayring.

If you will review your own life, boy reader, you may be able to find in it some incident, which happened, perhaps, long before you were out of pinafores, and which you remember perfectly, while all your life previous to the occurrence of that particular incident is a blank to you. Just so it was in my own experience. When I first came to my senses, I found myself snugly tied up in my case and standing in a corner, looking through a glass door into a large store in which guns of all makes and fishing tackle of all kinds were kept for sale. At first I was greatly bewildered. I felt, if I may judge from what I have seen during my trips to the woods, like a boy who has just awakened from a sound sleep; but after a while my wits came to me, and then I found that I was not alone in the show-case. There were a dozen or two fly and bait rods standing in the corner beside me, and a little further down, looking toward the back end of the store, were single and double-barreled shot-guns, muzzle and breech-loading rifles, game-bags, creels, hunting knives, dog-whips, and almost every thing else that a sportsman is supposed to need. In the show-case, which rested on the long counter in front of me, were revolvers, pen-knives, lines, leaders, flies and ordinary fish-hooks without number; and on the opposite side of the store was an array of barrels containing glass balls, traps for throwing those balls, bicycles, tricycles, rowing and lifting machines—in fact, I saw so many things that I did not then know the name or use of, that I became confused while I looked at them.

“Hallo, there! Have you waked up at last?” cried a voice, breaking in upon my meditations.

A short investigation showed that the voice came from the case that stood next on my right. I did not know, of course, what sort of a rod he was, or whether or not he would prove to be an agreeable acquaintance; but wishing to be civil, I replied that I had waked up, and that, if he could tell me, I should be glad to know where I was and how I came there.

“Why, you are in a one-horse country town, a thousand miles from nowhere, and you have always been here,” was the answer, given as I thought in a tone of contempt. “I have traveled. I came all the way from New York.”

“Who are you?” I ventured to ask; for my new acquaintance spoke in so dignified and lofty a tone, that I stood somewhat in awe of him.

“I am a split bamboo,” said he; and then I saw very clearly that he was disposed to throw on airs, and to lord it over those who were not as fortunate as himself. “I am a gentleman’s rod, and it takes the ducats to buy me. I am worth forty-five dollars; while I see by the card tied to your case, that you are valued at only six and a half.”

Not being quick at figures at this early period of my life, I could not tell just how much difference there was between forty-five dollars and six and a half, but I knew by the way the bamboo spoke, that the gulf that separated him from me was a wide one. I have learned some things since then. I know now that the qualities of a fly-rod do not depend upon the varnish that is put on the outside of him, any more than a boy’s qualities of mind and heart depend upon the clothes he wears. The stuff he is made of and the company he keeps have much to do with the record he makes in the world. While I was turning the matter over in my mind, somebody who had been listening to our conversation, suddenly broke in with:

“You are neither one of you worth the money you cost.”

I looked around to see who the new speaker was, and presently discovered him in the person of a handsome bird gun, who rested upon a pair of deer’s antlers a short distance away.

“You can’t bring a squirrel out of the top of the tallest hickory in the woods, or stop a woodcock or a grouse on the wing, but I can,” continued the double-barrel.

“I can catch a trout, if I have some one to back me who understands his business, and that’s more than you can do,” retorted the bamboo, spitefully. “I can throw a line sixty or seventy feet; I heard the proprietor of this store say so.”

“And I can throw shot sixty or seventy yards, which is three times as far as you can throw a line,” shouted the double-barrel. “You seem to think yourself of some consequence because you came from New York. I came all the way from England, and that is on the other side of the ocean.”