[Pg 9]

[Pg 9]

THE OLD HANGING FORK.

O don't you remember those days so divine,

Around which the heart-strings all tenderly twine,

When with sapling pole and a painted cork

We fished up and down the old Hanging Fork—

From the railroad bridge, with its single span,

Clear down to the mill at Dawson's old dam—

From early morn till the shades of night,

And it made no difference if fish didn't bite?

What pleasure it gives to think and to dream

Of those long, happy days, and the old winding stream,

When we waded the creek with our pants to the knee,

And got our lines tangled in a sycamore tree,

And were most scared to death when out from the root

The long, wriggling snake through the water did shoot,

And you lost your line, your hook and your cork,

And I slipped and fell in the old Hanging Fork!

The years they have come, and the years they have fled,

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