Thread by @crabcrawler1

THREAD: McElligot’s Pool

By Dr. Seuss

""Young man," laughed the farmer, "you're sort of a fool! You'll never catch fish in McElligot's Pool!""

"The pool is too small. And, you might as well know it, when people have junk here's the place that they throw it."

^"You might catch a boot or you might catch a can. You might catch a bottle, but listen, young man... if you sat fifty years with your worms and your wishes, you'd grow a long beard long before you'd catch fishes!"

""Hmmm..." answered Marco, "it may be you're right. I've been here three hours without one single bite. There might be no fish..." "...But, again, well, there might!""

"'Cause you never can tell what goes on down below!"

"This pool might be bigger than you or I know!"

"This MIGHT be a pool, like I've read of in books, connected to one of those underground brooks!"

"An underground river that starts here and flows right under the pasture! And then... well, who knows?"

"It might go along, down where no one can see, right under State Highway Two-Hundred-and-Three! Right under the wagons! Right under the toes of Mrs. Umbroso who's hanging out clothes!"

^"It might keep on flowing... perhaps... who can tell?... Right under the people in Sneeden's Hotel! Right under the grass where they're playing croquet! Then under the mountains and far, far away!"

"This might be a river, now mightn't it be,

Connecting
McElligot's
Pool
With
The
Sea!

Then maybe some fish might be swimming toward me!
(If such a thing could be, they certainly would be!)"

"Some very smart fellow might point out the way to the place where I'm fishing. And that's why I say if I wait long enough; if I'm patient and cool, who knows what I'll catch in McElligot's Pool!"

"I might catch a thin fish,
I might catch a stout fish.
I might catch a short
or
a
long,
long
drawn-out fish!"

"Any kind! Any shape! Any color or size! I might catch some fish that would open your eyes!"

"I won't be surprised if a Dog Fish appears! Complete with a collar and long floppy ears! Whoofing along! And perhaps he might chase a whole lot of Catfish right straight to this place!"

"I might catch a fish with a pinwheel-like tail!"
"I might catch a fish who has fins like a sail!"
"I might catch some young fish some high-jumping friskers."
"I might catch an old one with long flowing whiskers!"

"I might catch a fish with a long curly nose."
"I might catch a fish like a rooster that crows."
"I might catch a fish with a checkerboard belly,"
"Or even a fish made of strawberry jelly!"

"I might catch a Sea Horse. (Now mightn't I now ...?)"
"I might catch a fish who is partly a cow!"

"Some fish from the Tropics, all sunburned and hot, might decide to swim up! Well they might... might they not? Racing up north for a chance to get cool, full steam ahead for McElligot's Pool!"

"Some Eskimo Fish from beyond Hudson Bay might decide to swim down; might be headed this way! It's a pretty long trip, but they might and they may."

"I might catch an eel... (well, I might. It depends.) ... A long twisting eel with a lot of strange bends and, oddly enough, with a head on both ends! One doesn't catch this kind of fish as a rule, but the chances are fine in McElligot's Pool!"

"I might catch a fish with a terrible grouch... or an Australian fish with a kangaroo's pouch!"

"Who wants to catch small ones like mackerel or trout! SAY! I'll catch a Saw Fish with such a long snout that he needs an assistant to help him out!"

"If I wait long enough, if I'm patient and cool, who knows what I'll catch in McElligot's Pool!"

"Some rough-neck old Lobster, all gristle and muscle, might grab at my bait, then would I have a tussle! To land one so tough might take two or three hours, but the next might be easy..."

"... The kind that likes flowers."

"I might catch some sort of a fast-moving bloke who zips through the waves with an over-arm stroke! (I might and I may and that's really no joke!)"

"A fish even faster! A fish, if you please, who slides down the sides of strange islands on skis! He might ski on over and pay me a visit. That's not impossible... really, now is it?"

"Some Circus Fish! Fish from an acrobat school, might stage a big show in McElligot's Pool!"

"Or I might catch a fish from a stranger place yet! From the world's highest river in far-off Tibet, where the falls are so steep that it's dangerous to ride 'em, so the fish put up chutes and they float down beside 'em."

"From the world's deepest ocean, from way down below, from down in the mud where the deep-divers go, from down in the mire and the muck and the murk, I might catch some fish who are all going, "GLURK!""

"WHALES! I'll catch whales! Yes, a whole herd of whales! all spouting their spouts and all thrashing their tails! I'll catch fifty whales, then I'll stop for the day 'cause there's nothing that's bigger than whales, so they say. Still, of course, it might be..."

"... that there IS something bigger! Some sort of a kind of A THING-A-MA-JIGGER!! A fish that's so big, if you know what I mean, that he makes a whale look like a tiny sardine!"

"Oh, the sea is so full of a number of fish, if a fellow is patient, he might get his wish!"

"And that's why I think that I'm not such a fool when I sit here and fish in McElligot's Pool!"

THE END