The Life of Hope by Paul Quarrington Read Free Book Online

from the “line”. All that young Ashley had to show for his “day’s work” was a largish head, the body bitten off cleanly below the operculum.
    I was reading this out at Lookout Lake. The book
Fishing for Ol’ Mossback
was first published, at the author’s own expense, in the year 1902. (Mine was a reprinting done in 1966, although I didn’t see why anyone bothered. Surprisingly, my edition was published by a reputable, and scholarly, house.) I suppose the book’s antiquity accounts for the rather free-style use of inverted commas and the stilted syntactical constructions. Certain things struck me as more idiosyncratic, such as the use of that word “stirpicult,” which I had never encountered before, and seemed a most unlikely synonym for “fisherman.” Mostly I wondered about using a live mouse for bait. (Actually, mostly I brooded over the Indian’s Vision.)
    Lookout Lake, by the way, was hardly what I’d expected. I’d expected, and longed for, an awesome God-wrought spectacle, alive and colorful and magnificent, something that would make whole my heart, dry the tears that I hadn’t the courage to shed. Instead I found a tiny, mucky thing, surrounded by desolate terrain of outcroppings. I realized that the lake wasn’t called “Lookout” because of any splendiferous view, it was called “Look out!” because rocks kept dropping out of the sky. The only thing I found soothing about it was the loneliness. No one lived beside Lookout Lake as far as I could tell; there was one cabin by the water’s edge, but it was long-abandoned and ravaged by the wilderness.
    Beside me I had my fishing gear and a bottle of Harvey Benson’s whiskey. I sat on a rock, drinking and leafing through my little book. Soon, I thought, I’ll do me some serious fishing.
    The most amusing of the “myths” concerning Mossback is the one profferred by the aboriginal community whereby the Fish is granted through some “Power” the faculty of human “speech”. Jonathon Whitecrow, for example, despite his impressive talents and “intelligence” (all the more impressive for his being an “Indian”) is constantly claiming to have engaged Mossback in “conversation”. We haveoften baited the old man, and I recorded one such encounter. This took place some years ago. Present are the author, Lemuel and Samuel McDiarmid, and Isaiah Hope. We met Whitecrow at The Willing Mind, where we four had gone after a luckless “expedition”. It behooves me to state that the McDiarmid twins and myself were slightly “intoxicated”, while Isaiah Hope, as was his wont, was well into his “cups”. Jonathon Whitecrow seemed sober enough, although this seems unlikely in retrospect, given his “heritage”.
    Lem McDiarmid:
How, Whitecrow.
    Jonathon Whitecrow:
How?
    Sam McDiarmid:
How!
    Isaiah Hope:
I believe they mean “hullo”, Jonathon.
    Whitecrow:
Oh! Hullo, boys.
    Lem:
Talked to Ol’ Mossback lately, Whitecrow?
    Whitecrow:
Why, um, yes. Just the other day as a matter of fact.
    Sam:
What did he say?
    Whitecrow:
He said that he doesn’t like fieldmice, and that they are especially unappetizing when someone has stuck a hook through them.
    Lem:
Oh, yeah? What would he have us use for bait then?
    Whitecrow:
He would prefer it if you used guile, respect and a fullness of heart.
    Isaiah:
Far simpler just to stick a hook in some poor mouse, Jonathon.
    Gregory Opdycke:
I take it, then, that Mossback intends not to be taken?
    Whitecrow:
This is true. But he doesn’t want you boys to stop trying. He thinks life would become rather boring.
    Lem:
What else do you talk about —
    Sam:
When you and Mossback talk?
    Whitecrow:
Just everyday things. How his children are.
    Opdycke:
He has children?
    Whitecrow:
Oh, yes. Many.
    Isaiah:
Does he ever mention my father?
    Whitecrow:
Often.
    Lem & Sam:
Does he say that Joe Hope was a man of good taste?
    (At this point Isaiah and the McDiarmid twins exchanged verbal insults too “ribald” to recount.