You can find out the time from that.
Haven't you got a watch on that chain?"
"I broke it this morning."
I showed them my watch. They examined it gravely.
"It's still running," the second said. "What does a watch like that cost?"
"It was a present," I said. "My father gave it to me when I graduated from high school."
"Are you a Canadian?" the third said.
He had red hair.
"Canadian?"
"He dont talk like them," the second said. "I've heard them talk.
He talks like they do in minstrel shows."
"Say," the third said. "Aint you afraid he'll hit you?"
"Hit me?"
"You said he talks like a colored man."
"Ah, dry up," the second said. "You can see the steeple when you get over that hill there."
I thanked them.
"I hope you have good luck.
Only dont catch that old fellow down there.
He deserves to be let alone."
"Cant anybody catch that fish," the first said.
They leaned on the rail, looking down into the water, the three poles like three slanting threads of yellow fire in the sun.
I walked upon my shadow, tramping it into the dappled shade of trees again.
The road curved, mounting away from the water.
It crossed the hill, then descended winding, carrying the eye, the mind on ahead beneath a still green tunnel, and the square cupola above the trees and the round eye of the clock but far enough.
I sat down at the roadside.
The grass was ankle deep, myriad.
The shadows on the road were as still as if they had been put there with a stencil, with slanting pencils of sunlight.
But it was only a train, and after a while it died away beyond the trees, the long sound, and then I could hear my watch and the train dying away, as though it were running through another month or another summer somewhere, rushing away under the poised gull and all things rushing.
Except Gerald.
He would be sort of grand too, pulling in lonely state across the noon, rowing himself right out of noon, up the long bright air like an apotheosis, mounting into a drowsing infinity where only he and the gull, the one terrifically motionless, the other in a steady and measured pull and recover that partook of inertia itself, the world punily beneath their shadows on the sun.
Caddy that blackguard that blackguard Caddy
Their voices came over the hill, and the three slender poles like balanced threads of running fire.
They looked at me passing, not slowing.
"Well," I said. "I dont see him."
"We didn't try to catch him," the first said. "You cant catch that fish."
"There's the clock," the second said, pointing. "You can tell the time when you get a little closer."
"Yes," I said. "All right." I got up. "You all going to town?"
"We're going to the Eddy for chub," the first said.
"You cant catch anything at the Eddy," the second said.
"I guess you want to go to the mill, with a lot of fellows splashing and scaring all the fish away."
"You cant catch any fish at the Eddy."
"We wont catch none nowhere if we dont go on," the third said.
"I dont see why you keep on talking about the Eddy," the second said. "You cant catch anything there."
"You dont have to go," the first said. "You're not tied to me."
"Let's go to the mill and go swimming," the third said.
"I'm going to the Eddy and fish," the first said. "You can do as you please."
"Say, how long has it been since you heard of anybody catching a fish at the Eddy?" the second said to the third.
"Let's go to the mill and go swimming," the third said.
The cupola sank slowly beyond the trees, with the round face of the clock far enough yet.
We went on in the dappled shade.