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.
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