The Indianapolis Leader

How the Ladies Fish.

There are generally about six of them in a bunch, with light dresses on, and they have three poles with as many hooks and lines among them. As soon as they get to the river they look for a good place to get down the bank, and the most venturesome one sticks her boot heels in the bank and makes two careful steps down—then finds herself at the bottom, with both hands in the water, and a feeling that everybody in this wide world is looking at her, and she never tells anybody how she got there. The other girls, profiting by her example, turn around and go down the bank on their hands and toes, backward. Then they scamper over the rafts until they find a shallow place where they can see the fish, and shout:

"Oh, I see one!"

"Where?"

"Oh, my, so he is!"

"Let's catch him!"

"Who's got the bait?"

"You lazy thing, you're sitting on my pole!"

All these exclamations are gotten off in a tone that awakens every echo within a mile around, and sends every fish that hears into galloping hysterics."

Then the girls, by superhuman exertion, manage to get a worm on the hook and throw it into the water with a splash like the launching of a wash-tub, and await the result. After awhile a feeble-minded sunfish contrives to get fastened on the hook of a timid woman, and she gives vent to her tongue.

"Oh, something's got my hook!"

"Pull up, you little idiot!" shout about five excited voices, as poles and hooks are dropped and they run to the rescue. The girl with the bite gives a spasmodic jerk, which sends the unfortunate "sunny" into the air the full length of the line, and he comes down on the nearest curly head with a damp flop that sets her clawing as though there were bumblebees in her hair.

"Oh, murder! take it away! Ugh! take it away, the nasty thing!"

Then they hold up their skirts and gather about that fish as he skips over the logs, one all the time holding the line in both hands, with her foot on the pole, as though she had an evil-disposed goat at the other end. Then they talk it over.

"How will it ever get off?"

"Ain't it pretty?"

"Wonder if it ain't dry?"

"Poor little thing! let's put it back again?"

"How will we get the hook from its mouth?" —The Era.