Adventures in Contentment

"Does it make you feel that way?" asked the Scotch Preacher. "It makes me want to go fishing." And he took the old book and turned the leaves until he came to page 54. "Let me read you," he said, "what the old fellow says about the 'fearfulest of fishes.'" "'... Get secretly behind a tree, and stand as free from motion as possible; then put a grasshopper on your hook, and let your hook hang a quarter of a yard short of the water, to which end you must rest your rod on some bough of a tree; but it is likely that the Chubs will sink down towards the bottom of the water at the first shadow of your rod, for a Chub is the fearfulest of fishes, and will do so if but a bird flies over him and makes the least shadow on the water; but they will presently rise up to the top again, and there lie soaring until some shadow affrights them again; I say, when they lie upon the top of the water, look at the best Chub, which you, getting yourself in a fit place, may very easily see, and move your rod as slowly as a snail moves, to that Chub you intend to catch, let your bait fall gently upon the water three or four inches before him, and he will infallibly take the bait, and you will be as sure to catch him.... Go your way presently, take my rod, and do as I bid you, and I will sit down and mend my tackling till you return back----'"