ever this might have astonished him, it
didn't seem to disturb the rest. In that way I caught all I wanted,
and could have caught a bushel. It isn't a very science way of
fishin', but it answers when a man is hungry, and hasn't got any
bait or fly."

"I scarcely know why," said the Doctor, "but Cullen's account of
catching his trout, reminds me of a circumstance which occurred when I
was a boy, and which for the moment made a deal of sport. I have not
probably thought of it in twenty years, but it comes to me now as
fresh as though it were the occurrence of yesterday. It must be, as
Hank Wood said the other day, that a thing which gets fairly anchored
in a man's mind, remains there always, and covered up as it may be by
other and later things, it can never be forgotten. It will come
drifting back on the current of memory, fresh and palpable as ever.

"Everybody understands, or ought to understand, how sheep are washed.
A small yard is built on the bank of a stream adjacent to a deep
place. One side of which is open to the water, and into which the
flock is crowded. The washers take their places in the water, where it
is three or four feet deep, and the sheep are caught by others, and
tossed to them, where they undergo ablution (an operation by the way,
that they do not seem altogether to enjoy), to wash the dirt and gum
from their fleeces. On such occasions, it is regarded as a lawful
thing, a standing and ancient practical joke, to pitch any outsider,
who may happen to indulge his curiosity by stopping to look on, into
the stream. If he is verdant, he will be very likely to be inveigled
into the yard, and in an unguarded moment, be made to take an
involuntary dive, head foremost into the water.

"A few rods above the place in which my father washed his sheep, was
an old dam, the apron of which remained, and beneath which was a basin
some five or six feet in depth, and thirty or forty feet in diameter,
filled of course with water. On one occasion, a man who was employed
to catch the sheep, was one of those shiftless, good-natured, lazy
fellows, to be found in almost every neighborhood, who prefer smoking
and telling stories in bar-rooms to regular work, and who greatly
prefer odd jobs to consecutive labor. Tom G----was one of this genus,
full of fun and mischief, but without a particle of real malice in
his composition. As he was busy throwing sheep to the washers, a young
fellow from the neighboring village happened