December 26, 1912

Fish
Part 2
By Andrew Price

We as people are generally afflicted with a Scotch conscience and that is a very uneasy kind to have. The New England conscience is a light airy thing compared to a Scotch conscience. It is the kind that both make cowards of us all. Up until the last ten years it looked like it was going to let up on us a little bit, but it has bit down on the people lately, until they are talking of incorporating the ten commandments in the party platform and making the parties live up to their pledges. In the old days in Scotland it was sinful to fish for pleasure and only those who found it work and not play were allowed to fish. Otherwise the long arm of the church would reach out after you and admonish or punish you as it saw fit.

According to the code, all natural affections, all social pleasures, all amusements and all the joyous instincts of the human heart were sinful and were to be rooted out. Abernethey’s “Psysicke for the Soule,” published about two hundred years ago says: “Pleasures are most carefully to be avoided; because they both harm and deceive.”

Many times when as Kipling says: “I have dropped the half-dressed hide, and have let my business slide,” to go fishing the still small voice of my Scotch conscience would whisper that it was altogether wrong, and that I ought to be at home at work, or at least working in the garden, and that I was enjoying the fishing it was proof conclusive that it was sinful and wrong.

From the dim red dawn of my infancy, I have been constantly enraged by reminders of the woodpile and the garden in the fishing season…I remember thinking it some poetry when I wrote it as a parody on a touching temperance piece that was in vogue years ago. You must picture a fisherman standing waist deep in the water in the dust of a summer day, even and anon, casting far over towards the big sunken rock, waiting for another bite.  He is loaded down with black bass, but is after the elusive big one that he knows it there. His little daughter comes down to the river, and unto him these words does say:

“Oh, father, dear father, come home with me now,
The clock in the kitchen struck eight
And mamma is waiting for you with a stick,
It’s so gloomy, so dark, and so late.
The supper’s all eat, and the victuals are cold,
And mamma is mad and says how,
She ain’t going to give you nothing to eat,
Till you go and hunt up the cow.
And water the horse and lay up the fence,
And cut her a big pile of wood;
Oh, father, come home, quit fishing right now
And do up the work and be good.”

ACCIDENTS
In attempting to pass a wagon at a narrow place on the Deer Creek Road, Dr. J. D. Arbuckle had a valuable horse go over the road and be killed, last Friday. This occurred at the bend in the road below Cass. The lower side of the road broke away, letting the horse’s hind legs go over the steep embankment. The doctor stepped out of the saddle. The horse went over and was killed by the fall to the railroad track below. It was a well-bred stallion and a very valuable animal.

The concrete bridge just completed across Douthards Creek at Henry White’s fell down last night. Both arches collapsed, leaving the abutments and the middle pier standing. The finishing work had been done Wednesday, the frames taken away, and at midnight the structure went down. It is presumed the concrete was weakened by freezing. The Luton Bridge Company built the bridge, and had worked under disadvantages, and the failure of the work to stand will be a heavy loss to them.

IN JAIL
W. H. Ayers is in jail for attempting to cut his wife’s throat with a razor at Cass Tuesday. A high collar protected her from serious injury. Ayers was beside himself from the use of drugs.

HOGS
Lanty Cole butchered two hogs last week which netted 1,059 pounds at thirteen months old. One netted 579 and the other 480 pounds. A year ago the pair were bought from W. McClintic, and are a cross between thoroughbred Yorkshire and Berkshire hogs. These hogs were not stall fattened until they were helpless. They are the best we have heard about, and we claim for them the blue ribbon for the Valley this year.

SHEEP
Not less than 250 sheep and lambs are missing from the Marlin and Thorney ranges this season. So few carcases are found in the woods that it cannot be the devastation of bears and dogs. Last year, hundreds of sheep were stolen in the Alleghany range.

ARBOVALE
L. D. Wooddell and Fred Conrad are the champion rabbit hunters, having killed forty-five in one week.
We are glad to see our old mail carrier, W. A. Arbogast, back on the route again.
J. W. Gillispie has put the finishing touches on a dwelling for Bud Arbogast.

FROST
Mr. and Mrs. W. J. Pritchard and little daughter Annie Lona spent a few hours very pleasantly at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Wise Herold’s last Sunday.
Rev. Humes gave us two good sermons Sunday, we were glad to have our old pastor with us again.
A. A. Sharp let his young team get away last Monday. They ran as far as Wise Herold’s, but no damage was done.

GREENBANK
J. W. Hollen, of Boyer, is baling hay for the farmers in upper Pocahontas at this time.
E. N. Curry, of Dunmore, is having a bad time with rheumatism at present.
The oil boring is at a standstill at present.
We are glad to hear of the roller mill going up at Dunmore; it surely will be a fine thing for our farmers and all who have to buy flour.

WANLESS
Fine winter weather and lots of sickness. Aunty Margaret Cassell has been confined to her bed for some days; Rev. C. B. Collins, of Hosterman, was paralyzed last Thursday, in the left side and is dangerously ill.
Dr. Hunter Moomau was called to see Mrs. John Cassell, who is very ill. He drove in his automobile.
Rev. John Hevener and Robert have set thirty-one thousand ginseng this fall. A test in this garden showed three hundred percent profit the last year on one bed.