“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 that way, and becoming somewhat interested in the process, was seduced by Tom G——­, inside of the yard, to try his hand at catching and tossing in sheep.  About the second or third one he operated upon, his treacherous friend stumbled against him, giving him a tremendous push, and with a sheep in his arms he drove head foremost among the washers.  The water was cold, and there was a good deal of puffing and blowing about the time his head came above the surface.  He was a sensible chap, and took the joke as a wise man should, especially when the odds are all against him, albeit, it was somewhat rude.

“He came out on the other side of the stream, and after joining in the laugh against himself, and taking off and wringing his garments, he wandered up to the apron of the old dam, and stretching himself along the planks, went to looking anxiously down into the deep water.  After a while, he seemed to have discovered something, and called out to his friend below, ’I say Tom, have you got a fishhook in your pocket?  Here is a trout that will weigh two pounds, and I want to hook him up.’  Now Tom was a fisherman, and a big trout was his weakness; moreover, he was never without half a dozen hooks and lines in his pockets.  He left his business at once, and went up to the apron to assist in taking the two-pound trout.  A pole was cut, and a couple of feet of line, with a hook attached, was fastened a little way from the top, and the haft of the hook stuck into the end so that by a little force it might be removed, and Tom and his friend got upon the apron, and stooped over to see where the great trout lay.

“‘Here he is, Tom, just under the edge of this rock.’  Tom stretched himself over to get a view of the fish, when a vigorous shove from the rear sent him like a great frog plump towards the bottom of the pool.  This was a consummation that Tom had not bargained for, but there was no alternative but to swim for the shore, dripping like a rat from a flooded sewer.  That joke had two points to it, and Tom G——­had the worst of them.”