E-text prepared by James LaTondre
and the Project Gutenbert Online Distributed Proofreading Team
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He was out in the backyard ... flapping that rod in circles
The Blossoming Rod
by
Mary Stewart Cutting
A.L. Burt Company
Publishers New York
Doubleday, Page & Company
The Blossoming Rod
Mr. Langshaw had vaguely felt unusual preparations for aChristmas gift to him this year; he was always being asked for"change" to pay the children for services rendered.
It might have seemed a pity that calculation as to dollars andcents entered so much into the Christmas festivities of the family,if it were not that it entered so largely into the scheme of livingthat it was naturally interwoven with every dearest hope and fancy;the overcoming of its limitations gave a zest to life. Langshawhimself, stopping now, as was his daily habit, to look at thedisplay made by the sporting-goods shop on his way home the Fridayafternoon before Christmas Monday, wondered, as his hand touchedthe ten-dollar bill in his pocket—a debt unexpectedly paidhim that day—if the time had actually arrived at last when hemight become the possessor of the trout-rod that stood in thecorner of the window; reduced, as the ticket proclaimed, fromfifteen dollars to ten.
The inspiration was the more welcome because the moment beforehis mind had been idly yet disquietingly filled with theshortcomings of George, his eldest child, and only son, aged ten,who didn't seem to show that sense of responsibility which hisposition and advanced years called for—even evading hisduties to his fond mother when he should be constituting himselfher protector. He was worried as to the way George would turn outwhen he grew up.
This particular trout-rod, however, had an attraction forLangshaw of long standing. He had examined it carefully more thanonce when in the shop with his neighbour, Wickersham; it wasn't afifty-dollar rod, of course, but it seemed in some ways as good asif it were—it was expensive enough for him! He had spoken ofit once to his wife, with a craving for her usual sympathy, only tomeet with a surprise that seemed carelessly disapproving.
"Why, you have that old one of your father's and the bass-rodalready; I can't see why you should want another. You always sayyou can't get off to go fishing as it is."
He couldn't explain that to have this particular split bamboowould be almost as good as going on a fishing trip; with it in hishand he could feel himself between green meadows, the line swirlingdown the rushing brook. But later Clytie had gone back to thesubject with pondering consideration.
"Ten dollars seems an awful price for a rod! I'm sure I couldbuy the same thing for much less uptown; wouldn't you like me tosee about it some day?"
"Great Scott! Never think of such a thing!" he had replied inhorror. "I could get much cheaper ones myself! I