A Boy Ought to Have a Chance

The little boy eyed all of the colorful items in the old fisherman’s tackle box. He wanted to touch, but he didn’t dare.

“You like to fish?” the fisherman asked.

“Don’t know. Never have,” said the boy, whose eyes never moved from the contents of the box. “You use all that stuff, Mr. Russell?”

“At one time or another. How come you never been fishing?”

“No one ever took me,” the boy answered.

The fisherman studied the little boy he had known for only a few weeks. Richard was a foster child living temporarily in my home. Soon the boy would be moving again to a permanent placement.

“Never been fishing,” the fisherman later repeated to me. “No one ever took him.” That just didn’t seem right to him. A boy ought to have the chance to go fishing. That was an important part of growing up. What kind of man would this boy grow up to be if he never went fishing, if he never patiently waited for the tug on a line?

The fisherman decided that Richard would go fishing before he moved. But going fishing wasn’t enough. The boy had to catch a fish. How could he be sure that the boy would experience the joy of hooking a fish and landing it? He decided to enlist the aid of another fisherman—his older brother Ernest.

The two men discussed the problem and decided on the solution. They would take young Richard to a fishing hole on their nephew’s place. The pond was overstocked with finger-size fish. Richard would get his chance to catch a fish. It might not be bragging size, but it would be a catch that Richard could delight in.

Question1: Has Richard ever fished before ?

Question2:What does the fisherman do in order to teach Richard to fish?