The next morning found old Peter of the same mind, and after breakfast he proceeded to fit me out for a day of what he called “plain Christian trout-fishin’.”  He gave me a reed rod, about nine feet long, light, strong, and nicely balanced.  The tackle he produced was not of the fancy order, but his lines were of fine strong linen, and his hooks were of good shape, clean and sharp, and snooded to the lines with a neatness that indicated the hand of a man who had been where he learned to wear little gold rings in his ears.

“Here are some of these feather insects,” he said, “which you kin take along if you like.”  And he handed me a paper containing a few artificial flies.  “They’re pretty nat’ral,” he said, “and the hooks is good.  A man who came here fishin’ gave ’em to me, but I shan’t want ’em to-day.  At this time of year grasshoppers is the best bait in the kind of place where we’re goin’ to fish.  The stream, after it comes down from the mountain, runs through half a mile of medder land before it strikes into the woods agen.  A grasshopper is a little creetur that’s got as much conceit as if his jinted legs was fish-poles, and he thinks he kin jump over this narrer run of water whenever he pleases; but he don’t always do it, and then if he doesn’t git snapped up by the trout that lie along the banks in the medder, he is floated along into the woods, where there’s always fish enough to come to the second table.”

Having got me ready, Peter took his own particular pole, which he assured me he had used for eleven years, and hooking on his left arm a good-sized basket, which his elder pretty daughter had packed with cold meat, bread, butter, and preserves, we started forth for a three-mile walk to the fishing-ground.  The day was a favorable one for our purpose, the sky being sometimes over-clouded, which was good for fishing, and also for walking on a highroad; and sometimes bright, which was good for effects of mountain-scenery.  Not far from the spot where old Peter proposed to begin our sport, a small frame-house stood by the roadside, and here the old man halted and entered the open door without knocking or giving so much as a premonitory stamp.  I followed, imitating my companion in leaving my pole outside, which appeared to be the only ceremony that the etiquette of those parts required of visitors.  In the room we entered, a small man in his shirt-sleeves sat mending a basket-handle.  He nodded to Peter, and Peter nodded to him.

“We’ve come up a-fishin’,” said the old man.  “Kin your boys give us some grasshoppers?”

“I don’t know that they’ve got any ready ketched,” said he, “for I reckon I used what they had this mornin’.  But they kin git you some.  Here, Dan, you and Sile go and ketch Mr. Gruse and this young man some grasshoppers.  Take that mustard-box, and see that you git it full.”