one morning in early june a ten-year-old lad, having been given a half-holiday, dug a fine mess of luscious worms, put them in a tin can with plenty of good dirt, and started off up berry creek to fish for bullheads and sunfish. he went through the papaw patch and cut a nice long pole, and took time to fix his line on it in good shape, and to see that his cork, sinker, and hook were all right. he then went on through the woods, crossed the big ravines, and climbed around the rocky cliffs, making his way to the spot designated among the boys as the "bullhead hole." this was and is the best place on earth to fish for bullheads, and the boy knew it, and it was there he wanted to commence the day's sport. finally he climbed over the last ledge, forced his way through the brush and came in sight of his favorite place, and, to his astonishment, he found an aged, peculiar looking man sitting under the old sycamore tree in the very spot where he had planned to be. he walked slowly up to a place as near the old man as good manners would permit, unwound his line and put on a good lively worm and commenced.
the old man paid no attention to him whatever, and, on watching him closely, the boy noticed that he was fishing for minnows with a pin-hook fastened to a thread, and this tied to a crooked stick. he put the minnows he caught into a tin bucket which was sitting at his feet, partially full of water. as soon as the boy noticed what he was doing, he set his pole and went up to him and offered to take off his shirt and help him seine for minnows with it. the old man looked up and said:
"boy, i wouldn't fish with minnows caught with the best seine on earth. your shirt wouldn't be much account as a seine; and anyway, they're never big enough. i am on my way to wakarusa, and i want some good, strong, live minnows. a man who fishes with seined minnows is no account. more than that, you have no business to get your shirt wet. you tend to your fishin' and i'll tend to mine. andrew jackson said he knew a man who got rich tending to his own business."
this was a good deal of a bluff for the boy, and he proceeded as had been suggested, and "tended to his own business." it was a good morning for bullheads, and he soon got their range and commenced catching them. in fact, they were biting so well that he didn't stop to string any of those he caught, but threw them back on the bank; and just to see to it that the stranger did not forget he was there, he usually threw them toward the foot of the sycamore tree.
after a while the old man took his thread off the crooked stick and wound it up, poured most of the water off his minnows, and then filled the bucket again with fresh water, splashing it in with his hand so that it would be as full of oxygen as possible; and then he took out an old pipe and filled it, and as he commenced to smoke he looked around at the ground, spotted with wriggling bullheads and sunfish, and for the boy, who had experienced a lull in his activities long enough to allow him to commence to pick up and string the fish he had caught.
the boy looked at him, and he brightened up and said:
"kid, you're having a good time, and i don't blame you. i am going down to wakarusa to fish for big fish, but, after all, you've got more sense than i. the bullhead is the safest and surest fish for meat, and he's not bad sport either, because he usually bites like he meant business, although he may be a little slow. the bullhead is a good deal like the rabbit in one way — he's sure food. there's more rabbit meat on foot in kansas than there is beef or pork, and it's all good. the buffalo was all right in his time, but even he didn't come up to the rabbit. the bullhead reminds me of the rabbit, and the rabbit reminds me of the bullhead."
the old man stopped talking, and acted as though he were about to start off, when the boy asked him where he was going on the wakarusa to fish, and he said:
"i don't know just where i'll wind up. i have fished in every hole in wakarusa from way above the wakarusa falls down stream nearly to lawrence, and sometimes i go to one place and sometimes to another. i've fished for bullheads, too, and for sunfish, in every place that the water is deep enough from the place where berry creek starts, over in the coal banks by carbondale, down to the sac and fox spring and all along lynn creek, especially in the part that's full of boulders and little round pebbles, with here and there a riffle made by a broken flat rock. and boy, i want to tell you something — some days you can catch fish like you've been catching 'em this morning, and some days you can't. i've seen days so dull that even the bite of a crawfish was welcome."
the old man started off, and then came back and took the boy by the shoulder and almost shook him as he said:
"don't tell anyone that you saw me. it's nobody's business." and then he went away.
the boy was not at all afraid, although the man was a total stranger, and looked and acted very queer. the next day he told joe coberly about meeting him, and joe said:
"that old cuss is not real. he's around here every once in a while, and always has been. nobody knows where he lives nor where he comes from or goes to. he must have been in a good humor or you wouldn't have caught so many fish, because he can give you good luck or bad luck; and there's always something strange happenin' when you hear of him around. last night something had one of my horses out and run him nearly to death; his mane was all tied in knots this morning, and he was wringin' wet with sweat when i went into the barn; and the barn doors were all fastened just as i had left them, too. you never can tell what's goin' to happen when that old devil's pretendin' to fish up and down the creek."
the boy told the story to a number of people, and soon found that practically all of the old-timers thought just the same as did joe coberly, and that they believed that there was something mysterious and unreal about the fisherman he met at the bullhead hole.
