The Gungawamp Fishing Club

The “Gungy Fishin’ Club” has met an’ talked its bizniz o’er;

It met as usu’l round the stove in Stokes’s grocery store,

An’ matters uv importance wuz discussed with great eclat,

An’ ev’rythig wuz angerfied an’ figgered right down pat.

One thing led to another, till, ez usual, someone had

To tell about some monstrous fish he’d ketched ‘long back, egad!

They warn’t no signs of breakin’ up the Meetin’, not jest then,

‘Cuz ev’rybuddy to a man jest set right down again.

Bige Barker ‘lowed he’d ketched a pike while lumb’rin’ down in Maine

That made a meal for seven men. Hen Billin’s spoke up plain:

Says he, “I guess they didn’t keer fur fish much down that way.”

Jed Martin ‘lowed they likely had fish-hash to eat next day.

Then Cap’n Joe said he recalled the time the cotton mill

Shet down all sudden-like one day an’ wouldn’t budge until

They went down in the wheel pit where they found a monstrous eel

Had wound himself around the spokes of the water wheel;

An’ fur a week the butcher swore they couldn’t sell no meat,

Becuz eel-chowder wuz the dish thet ev’rybuddy eat.

Ez Pelham hedn’t said a word, he smoked an’ smoked away

A-list’nin’ an a-blinkin’ while the others hed their say.

But finally he started in an’ ev’rybuddy knew

Thet Ez wuz never lackin’ fur a likely yarn or two.

“I ketched a bull-head once,” says he, “waal now I couldn’t say

Jest what he’d weigh, but this I know, it took me ha’f a day

To git him in the boat. I hed a lumber wagon there

An’ dragged him slowly home, an’ my! how Mary Ann did stare.

Unloaded him ez best I could – I’m purty stout at that,

An’ after Mary Ann said ‘huh’ I give him to the cat.”

Nov. 2, ‘07