Marco took dinner that day at the tavern alone, and, after dinner, he carried a cup of tea to Forester,—but Forester was asleep, and so he did not disturb him.

In the afternoon he went out to play. He amused himself, for half an hour, in rambling about the tavern yards and in the stables. There was a ferocious-looking bull in one of the yards, chained to a post, by means of a ring through his nose. Marco looked at the bull a few minutes with great interest, and then began to look about for a long stick, or a pole, to poke him a little, through the fence, to see if he could not make him roar, when, instead of a pole, his eye fell upon a boy, who was at work, digging in a corner of a field near, behind the barn.

The boy's name was Jeremiah. He was digging for worms for bait. He was going a fishing. Marco determined to go with him.

Jeremiah furnished Marco with a hook and a piece of sheet lead to make a sinker of, and Marco had some twine in his pocket already; so that he was soon fitted with a line. But he had no pole. Jeremiah said that he could cut one, on his way down to the river, as they would pass through a piece of woods which had plenty of tall and slender young trees in it.

He succeeded in getting a pole in this manner, which answered very well; and then he and Jeremiah went down to the river. They stood upon a log on the shore, and caught several small fishes, but they got none of much value, for nearly half an hour. At last, Jeremiah, who was standing at a little distance from Marco, suddenly exclaimed:

"Oh, here comes a monstrous great perch. He is coming directly towards my hook."

"Where? where?" exclaimed Marco. And Marco immediately drew out his hook from the place where he had been fishing, and walked along to the log on which Jeremiah was standing.

"Where is he?" said Marco, looking eagerly into the water.

"Hush!" said Jeremiah; "don't say a word. There he is, swimming along towards my hook."

"Yes," said Marco, "I see him. Now he's turning away a little. Let me put my line in, too."

Marco extended his pole and dropped his hook gently into the water. He let it down until it was near the perch. The poor fish, after loitering about a minute, gradually approached Marco's hook and bit at it.

Jeremiah, seeing that he was in danger of losing his fish, now called out to Marco to take his line out. "It is not fair," said he, "for you to come and take my fish, just as he was going to bite at my hook. Go away."

But it was too late. As Jeremiah was saying these words, the fish bit, and Marco, drawing up the line, found the fish upon the end of it. As the line came in, however, Jeremiah reached out his hand to seize the fish, and Marco, to prevent him, dropped the pole and endeavored to seize it too.

"Let go my fish," said Jeremiah.

"Let alone my line," said Marco.

Neither would let go. A struggle ensued, and Marco and Jeremiah, in the midst of it, fell off into the water. The water was not very deep, and they soon clambered up upon the log again, but the fish, which had been pulled off the line in the contention, fell into the water, and swam swiftly away into the deep and dark parts of the water, and was seen no more. He was saved by the quarrels of his enemies.

Marco, who was not so much accustomed to a wetting as Jeremiah was, became very angry, and immediately set off to go home to the tavern. Jeremiah coolly resumed his position on the log, and went to fishing again, paying no heed to Marco's expressions of resentment.

Marco walked along, very uncomfortable both in body and mind. His clothes were wet and muddy, and the water in his shoes made a chuckling sound at every step, until he stopped and took his shoes off, and poured the water out. It was nearly sunset when he reached the tavern. He found Forester better. He had left his bed, and had come down into the parlor. He was reclining on the sofa, reading a book, when Marco came in.

Marco advanced towards him, and began to make bitter complaints against Jeremiah. In giving an account of the affair, he omitted all that part of the transaction which made against himself. He said nothing, for instance, about his coming to put his line in where Jeremiah was fishing, and while a fish was actually near Jeremiah's hook, but only said that he caught a fish, and that Jeremiah came and took it away.

"But what claim had Jeremiah to the fish?" asked Forester.

"He had no claim at all," said Marco.

"You mean, he had no right at all," said Forester.

"Yes," said Marco.

"He had a claim, certainly," rejoined Forester; "that is, he claimed the fish. He pretended that it was his. Now, on what was this claim or pretence founded?"

"I don't know," said Marco, "I am sure. I only know he had no right to it, for I caught the fish myself, and he was going to take it away."

Forester paused a moment, and then resumed:

"I don't think that you have given me a full and fair account of the transaction; for I cannot believe that Jeremiah would have come and taken away the fish without any pretext whatever. You must have omitted some important part of the account, I think."

Marco then told Forester that Jeremiah said that the fish was just going to bite at his hook; and, after several other questions from Forester, he gradually acknowledged the whole truth. Still, he maintained that it was his fish. He had a right to put in his line, he said, wherever he pleased, whether another boy was fishing or not; the fish belonged to the one who caught him; and, before he was caught, he did not belong to anybody. It was absurd, he maintained, to suppose that the fish became Jeremiah's, just because he was swimming near his hook.

"Sometimes one can judge better of a case," said Forester, "by reversing the condition of the parties. Suppose that you had been fishing, and a large fish had come swimming about your hook, and that Jeremiah had then come to put his hook in at the same place, should you have thought it right?"

"Why, I don't know," said Marco.

"It is doubtful. Now, it is an excellent rule," continued Forester, "in all questions of right between ourselves and other persons, for us to give them the benefit of the doubt."

"What does that mean?" asked Marco.

"Why, if a man is tried in a court for any crime," replied Forester, "if it is clearly proved that he is innocent, of course he goes free. If it is clearly proved that he is guilty, he is convicted. But if neither the one nor the other can be proved, that is, if it is doubtful whether he is innocent or guilty, they give him the benefit of the doubt, as they term it, and let him go free."

"I should think that, when it is doubtful," said Marco, "they ought to send him back to prison again till they can find out certainly."

"No," said Forester, "the jury are directed to acquit him, unless it is positively proved that he is guilty. So that, if they think it is doubtful, they give him the benefit of the doubt, and let him go free. Now, in all questions of property between ourselves and others, we should all be willing to give to others the benefit of the doubt, and then the disputes would be very easily settled, or rather, disputes would never arise. In this case, for instance, it is doubtful whether you had a right to come and interfere while the fish was near his hook; it is doubtful whether he did or did not have a sort of right to try to catch the fish, without your interfering; and you ought to have been willing to have given him the benefit of the doubt, and so have staid away, or have given up the fish to him after you had caught it."

"But I don't see," said Marco, "why he should not have been willing to have given me the benefit of the doubt, as well as I to have given it to him."

"Certainly," said Forester; "Jeremiah ought to have considered that there was a doubt whether he was entitled to the fish or not, and to have been willing to have given you the benefit of the doubt; and so have let you kept the fish. Each, in such a case, ought to be willing to give up to the other."

"And then which of us should have it?" asked Marco.

"Why, it generally happens," said Forester, in reply, "that only one of the parties adopts this principle, and so he yields to the other; but if both adopt it, then there is sometimes a little discussion, each insisting on giving up to the other. But such a dispute is a friendly dispute, not a hostile one, and it is very easily settled."

"A friendly dispute!" exclaimed Marco; "I never heard of such a thing."

"Yes," said Forester. "Suppose, for instance, that, when you had caught your fish, you had said, 'There, Jeremiah, that fish is yours; he was coming up to your hook, and would have bitten at it if I had not put my line in;' and, then, if Jeremiah had said, 'No, it is not mine; it is yours, for you caught it with your hook;' this would have been a friendly dispute. It would have been very easily settled."

"I am sorry that I left my pole down at the river," said Marco. "I cut a most excellent pole in the woods, on my way down, and I left it there across the log. I mean to go down and get it early in the morning."

"No," said Forester; "we must be on our way up the river early to-morrow morning."

"How shall we go?" asked Marco.

"I have engaged a wagon here to take us to Bath, and there we shall find a stage."

Accordingly, early the next morning, Forester and Marco got into a wagon to go up the river to Bath, which is the first town of any considerable consequence which you meet in ascending the Kennebec river. Marco and Forester sat on the seat of the wagon, and a boy, who was going with them for the purpose of bringing the wagon back, sat behind, on a box, which had been put in to make a seat for him.

Marco said that he was very sorry that he had not time to go and get his fishing-pole.

"It would not do any good," said Forester, "for you could not carry it."

"Why, yes," said Marco, "we might put it on the bottom of the wagon, and let the end run out behind. It is pretty long."

"True," said Forester, "we might possibly get it to Bath, but what should we do with it then?"

"Why, then," said Marco, "we might put it on the top of the stage, I suppose. Would not they let us?"

"It would not be very convenient to carry a long fishing-pole, in that way, to Quebec," replied Forester, "through woods, too, half of the way, full of such poles. You might stop and get a cane or staff, if we find a place where there are some good ones. A cane would be of some service to you in walking up the hills, and that could be taken along with our baggage easily."

Marco said that he should like this plan very much; and, as they rode along, they looked out carefully for a place where there were slender saplings growing, suitable for canes.

"What kind of wood would you have?" asked Forester.

"I don't know," replied Marco; "which kind is the best?"

"The different woods have different qualities," replied Forester. "Some are light and soft, which are good qualities for certain purposes. Some are hard. Some are stiff, and some flexible. Some are brittle, and others tough. For a cane, now, do we want a hard wood or a soft one?"

"Hard," said Marco.

"Why?" asked Forester.

"Oh, so that it shall not get indented or bruised easily," replied Marco.

"A light wood or a heavy one?" asked Forester.

"Light," replied Marco, "so that it will be easy to carry."

"Stiff or flexible?" asked Forester.

"Stiff," replied Marco.

"Yes," said Forester. "Some kinds of wood grow straight, and others crooked."

"We want it straight," said Marco.

"Yes," replied Forester. "The pine grows very straight. If we could find some young pines, they would make us some beautiful-looking canes."

"And how is it with the other qualities?" asked Marco.

"Pine is very light," said Forester.

"That is good," said Marco.

"And soft," said Forester.

"That is not so well," said Marco.

"And it is very weak and brittle."

"Then it will not do at all," said Marco. "I want a good strong cane."

Just at this time, they were ascending a hill, and, after passing over the summit of it, they came to a place where Forester said he saw, in the woods, a number of young oaks and beeches, which, he said, would make good canes. The oak, he said, was very strong, and hard, and tough; so was the beech.

"Only there are two objections to them for canes," said Forester, as they were getting out of the wagon; "they are not so light as the pine, and then, besides, they are apt to grow crooked. We must look about carefully to find some that are straight."

"Which is the most valuable of all the kinds of wood?" asked Marco.

"The question is ambiguous," said Forester.

"What do you mean by that?" asked Marco.

"I mean, that it has two significations," replied Forester; "that is, the word valuable has two significations. Pine is the most valuable in one sense; that is, pine is, on the whole, most useful to mankind. But there are other kinds of wood which are far more costly."

"I should not think that pine would be so valuable," said Marco, "it is so weak and brittle."

"It is valuable," said Forester, "because, for the purpose for which men want the greatest quantities of wood, strength is not required. For boarding the outsides of buildings, for example, and finishing them within, which uses, perhaps, consume more wood than all others put together, no great strength is required."

"I think people want more wood to burn than to build houses with," said Marco.

"Yes," said Forester, "perhaps they do. They do in this country, I think, but perhaps not in Europe and other old countries. But pine, although it has no great strength, is an excellent wood for building, it is so soft and easily worked."

Forester's remarks, upon the different kinds of wood, were here interrupted by Marco's finding what he considered an excellent stick for a cane. When he had cut it, however, he found that it was not so straight as it had appeared to be while growing.

However, after some time spent in the selection, Marco and Forester both procured excellent canes.

"This is good, hard wood," said Marco, as he was trimming his cane, and cutting it to a proper length.