It
is curious how things will lay around in a man's memory, every now and
then startin' up and presentin' themselves, ready to be talked
about--reeled off--as it were, and then how quietly they coil
themselves away, to lay there, till some new sight, or sound, or idea,
or feelin' stirs 'em into life, and they come up again fresh and plain
as ever. Some people talk about forgotten things, but I don't believe
that any matter that gets fairly anchored in a man's mind, can ever be
forgotten, until age has broken the power of memory. It is there, and
will stay there, in spite of the ten thousand other things that get
piled in on top of it, and some day it will come popping out like a
cork, just as good and distinct as new. But I was talkin' about an
adventer I had with a trout, five year ago, here on the Upper
Saranac. I was livin' over on the _Au Sable_ then, and came over to
these parts to spend a week or so, and lay in a store of jerked
venison and trout for the winter. I brought along a bag of salt, and
two or three kegs that would hold a hundred pound or so apiece, and
filled 'em too with as beautiful orange-meated fellows as you'd see in
a day's drive. The trout were plentier than they are now. They hadn't
been fished by all the sportin' men in creation, and they had a chance
to grow to their nateral size.
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