"It's a funny thing about shiners!" he said.
"What is ?" inquired Custer.
"Why, you always catch 'em when you ain't fishing for 'em.

You fish for catfish or sun-dabs, or bass even, if you're using worms, and you catch shiners; mainly, I suppose, because they are no manner of use to you.

I reckon if you fished for shiners you wouldn't catch anything,--you couldn't--because there is no more worthless fish that swims! That's why fishing is like life; in fact, you can't do nothing that ain't like life; but I don't know but what catching shiners ain't just a little bit more like life than anything else! You think you're going to make a lot of money out of some job you've got, but it shaves itself down to half by the time it reaches you; or you've got to cough up double what you counted on when it's the other way about; so it works out the same always; you get soaked whether you buy or sell, from the cradle to the grave you're always catching shiners!" While Mr.Shrimplin was still philosophizing big drops of warm spring rain began to splash and patter on the long reach of still water before them.

He scrambled to his feet.
"We are going to have some weather, Custer!" he said, and they had scarcely time in which to drive Bill under the shelter of a disused hay barracks in an adjacent field, when the storm broke with all its fury.
Here they spent the better part of an hour, and when at last the rain ceased they climbed into the cart and turned Bill's head in the direction of home.
"I hope, Custer, that your ma won't be scared; it's getting mighty late," said the senior Shrimplin, and he shook his head as if in pity of a human weakness which his mind grasped, though he could not share in it.

"Seems to be that people give way more and more to their fear than they used to; or maybe it is that I ask too much, being naturally nervy myself and not having no nerves, as I may say." Half an hour later, off in the distance, the lights of Mount Hope became visible to Custer and his father.
"I'd give a good deal for a glass of suds and a cracker right now!" said Mr.Shrimplin, speaking after a long silence.