The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Blossoming Rod, by Mary Stewart Cutting

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Title: The Blossoming Rod

Author: Mary Stewart Cutting

Release Date: February 7, 2005 [eBook #14946]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BLOSSOMING ROD***

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THE BLOSSOMING ROD

by

MARY STEWART CUTTING

A.L. Burt Company
Publishers New York
Doubleday, Page & Company

[Illustration: _He was out in the backyard ... flapping that rod in
circles_]

Mr. Langshaw had vaguely felt unusual preparations for a Christmas gift
to him this year; he was always being asked for "change" to pay the
children for services rendered.

It might have seemed a pity that calculation as to dollars and cents
entered so much into the Christmas festivities of the family, if it were
not that it entered so largely into the scheme of living that it was
naturally interwoven with every dearest hope and fancy; the overcoming
of its limitations gave a zest to life. Langshaw himself, stopping now,
as was his daily habit, to look at the display made by the
sporting-goods shop on his way home the Friday afternoon before
Christmas Monday, wondered, as his hand touched the ten-dollar bill in
his pocket--a debt unexpectedly paid him that day--if the time had
actually arrived at last when he might become the possessor of the
trout-rod that stood in the corner of the window; reduced, as the ticket
proclaimed, from fifteen dollars to ten.

The inspiration was the more welcome because the moment before his mind
had been idly yet disquietingly filled with the shortcomings of George,
his eldest child, and only son, aged ten, who didn't seem to show that
sense of responsibility which his position and advanced years called
for--even evading his duties to his fond mother when he should be
constituting himself her protector. He was worried as to the way George
would turn out when he grew up.

This particular trout-rod, however, had an attraction for Langshaw of
long standing. He had examined it care