Evelyn’s Fondness for Fishing

On an island in the middle of a lake stood a fisherman’s house. It was an old wooden structure, full of all sorts of fishing gear — rods, lures of many kinds, bobbers, and fancy hooks. There were many types of fishing line on display, too — hanging on the wall, lying on the table and the floor, or just flung over the backs of chairs.

If you don’t know what such a line looks like and what it’s used for, I’ll tell you… A fishing line is like a super-long string, and it’s made of very strong filament. If you thread it through a fishing rod properly and attach it to a baited hook, you will catch a fish.

When the fisherman returned home one day, an especially thin line fell out of his bag. It was sobbing quietly. None of the other lines had ever seen her there before. So they all questioned her with great curiosity. “What kind of line are you? Where did you come from? What’s your name?”

The slim line looked frightened. She curled herself up in a corner of the bag and said meekly: “I’m Evelyn. I somehow got lost.” And right then, she began to cry.

It turned out that Evelyn was still a baby.

“Come on, Evelyn, don’t cry, you will be fine here with us — you’ll see,” assured the other lines, comforting her as they quickly prepared a small bed in a matchbox, furnishing it with pieces of soft cloth. Evelyn snuggled into it and soon fell asleep.

From then on, Evelyn lived together with all the other lines in the fisherman’s house. The mum and dad, who had five other fishing-line children, took Evelyn in and raised her as their own. Evelyn…