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Page 37
"Tell me, Colonel Thornton, do you consider that the French made a
mistake in concentrating so much of their reserve--" It was the
Governor himself who was demanding this earnestly of Bobby. And I saw
that the Governor and the rest were hypnotized, and did not need me.
So I sat at the head of the table, and waiters brooded over us, and
cucumbers and the usual trash happened, and Bobby held forth while the
ten who were bidden listened as to one sent from heaven. And, being
superfluous, I withdrew mentally to a canoe in a lonely lake and went
frogging.
Vicariously. I do not like frogging in person. The creature smiles. Also
he appeals because he is ugly and complacent. But for the grace of God I
might have looked so. He sits in supreme hideousness frozen to the end
of a wet log, with his desirable hind legs spread in view, and smiles
his bronze smile of confidence in his own charm and my friendship. It is
more than I can do to betray that smile. So, hating to destroy the beast
yet liking to eat the leg, about once in my summer vacation in camp I go
frogging, and make the guides do it.
It would not be etiquette to send them out alone, for in our club guides
are supposed to do no fishing or shooting--no sport. Therefore, I sit in
a canoe and pretend to take a frog in a landing-net and miss two or
three and shortly hand over the net to Josef. We have decided on
landing-nets as our tackle. I once shot the animals with a .22 Flobert
rifle, but almost invariably they dropped, like a larger bullet, off the
log and into the mud, and that was the end. We never could retrieve
them. Also at one time we fished them with a many-pronged hook and a bit
of red flannel. But that seemed too bitter a return for the bronze
smile, and I disliked the method, besides being bad at it. We took to
the landing-net.
To see Josef, enraptured with the delicate sport, approach a net
carefully till within an inch of the smile, and then give the old graven
image a smart rap on the legs in question to make him leap headlong into
the snare--to see that and Josef's black Indian eyes glitter with joy at
the chase is amusing. I make him slaughter the game instantly, which
appears supererogatory to Josef who would exactly as soon have a
collection of slimy ones leaping around the canoe. But I have them dead
and done for promptly, and piled under the stern seat. And on we paddle
to the next.
The day to which I had retired from my dinner-party and the tactical
lecture of my distinguished cousin was a late August day of two years
before. The frogging fleet included two canoes, that of young John
Dudley who was doing his vacation with me, and my own. In each canoe, as
is Hoyle for canoeing in Canada, were two guides and a "m'sieur." The
other boat, John's, was somewhere on the opposite shore of Lac des
Passes, the Lake of the Passes, crawling along edges of bays and
specializing in old logs and submerged rocks, after frogs with a
landing-net, the same as us. But John--to my mind coarser--was doing his
own frogging. The other boat was nothing to us except for an occasional
yell when geography brought us near enough, of "How many?" and envy and
malice and all uncharitableness if the count was more, and hoots of
triumph if less.
In my craft sailed, besides Josef and myself, as bow paddler, The Tin
Lizzie. We called him that except when he could hear us, and I think it
would have done small harm to call him so then, as he had the brain of a
jack-rabbit and managed not to know any English, even when soaked in it
daily. John Dudley had named him because of the plebeian and reliable
way in which he plugged along Canadian trails. He set forth the queerest
walk I have ever seen--a human Ford, John said. He was also quite mad
about John. There had been a week in which Dudley, much of a doctor, had
treated, with cheerful patience and skill, an infected and painful hand
of the guide's, and this had won for him the love eternal of our Tin
Lizzie. Little John Dudley thought, as he made jokes to distract the
boy, and worked over his big throbbing fist, the fist which meant daily
bread--little John thought where the plant of love springing from that
seed of gratitude would at last blossom. Little he thought as the two
sat on the gallery of the camp, and the placid lake broke in silver on
pebbles below, through what hell of fire and smoke and danger the
kindliness he gave to the stupid young guide would be given back to him.
Which is getting ahead of the story.
I suggested that the Lizzie might like a turn at frogging, and Josef,
with Indian wordlessness, handed the net to him. Whereupon, with his
flabby mouth wide and his large gray eyes gleaming, he proceeded to miss
four easy ones in succession. And with that Josef, in a gibberish which
is French-Canadian patois of the inner circles, addressed the Tin Lizzie
and took away the net from him, asking no orders from me. The Lizzie,
pipe in mouth as always, smiled just as pleasantly under this punishment
as in the hour of his opportunities. He would have been a very handsome
boy, with his huge eyes and brilliant brown and red color and his
splendid shoulders and slim waist of an athlete if only he had possessed
a ray of sense. Yet he was a good enough guide to fill in, for he was
strong and willing and took orders amiably from anybody and did his
routine of work, such as chopping wood and filling lamps and bringing
water and carrying boats, with entire efficiency. That he had no
initiative at all and by no chance did anything he was not told to, even
when most obvious, that he was lacking in any characteristic of
interest, that he was moreover a supreme coward, afraid to be left alone
in the woods--these things were after all immaterial, for, as John
pointed out, we didn't really need to love our guides.
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