Page:Castlemon--Joe Wayring at Home.djvu/31

 "What do you say, Uncle Joe?" asked the boy after he and his companion, whom he addressed as Roy Sheldon, had shaken me up and down in the air until it was a wonder to me that they did not break my back.

"Since Mr. Brown has recommended him, I say that you can't do better than to take him," was the reply, and that settled the matter. I had a master at last, and a good one, too, if there were any faith to be put in appearances. I took him for a restless, uneasy fellow who would not let me rust for want of use, and I found that I had not been mistaken in my opinion of him.

Joe, as I shall hereafter call him, next purchased, under his uncle's supervision, three long water-proof lines, a Loomis automatic reel, a dozen cream-colored leaders of different lengths, a creel who afterward became my constant companion, and a fly-book filled with all the most tempting lures known to anglers, such as coachmen, white millers, red and brown hackles, and many other things whose names I did not know. With these under his arm and me on his shoulder he set out for home