  Produced by Al Haines. BOBBY BLAKE at Rockledge School By Author of WHITMAN PUBLISHING CO. Copyright, MCMXV, by Printed in the United States of America CONTENTS CHAPTER
BOBBY BLAKE AT ROCKLEDGE SCHOOL CHAPTER I "THE OVERLAND LIMITED" A boy of about ten, with a freckled face and fiery red hair cropped close to his head, came doubtfully up the side porch steps of the Blake house in Clinton and peered through the screen door at Meena, the Swedish girl. Meena was tall and rawboned, with very red elbows usually well displayed, and her straw-colored hair was bound in a tight "pug" on top of her long, narrow head. Meena had sharp blue eyes and she could see boys a great way off. "Mis' Blake—she ban gone out," said Meena, before the red-haired boy could speak. "You vant somet'ing? No?" "I—I was looking for Bobby," said the visitor, stammeringly. He and Mrs. Blake's Swedish girl were not on good terms. "I guess he ban gone out, too," said Meena, who did not want to be "bothered mit boys." The boy looked as though he thought she was a bad guesser! Somewhere inside the house he heard a muffled voice. It shouted: "Whoo! whoo! whoo-whoo-who-o-o-o!" The imitation of a steam whistle grew rapidly nearer. It seemed to be descending from the roof of the house—and descending very swiftly. Finally there came a decided bang—the landing of a pair of well-shod feet on the rug—and the voice rang out: "All out! All out for last stop! All out!" "That's Bobby," suggested the boy with the red hair, looking wistfully into Meena's kitchen. "Vell!" ejaculated the girl. "You go in by the dining-room door, I guess. You not go to trapse through my clean kitchen. Vipe your feet, boy!" The boy did as he was bade, and opened the dining-room door. A steady footstep was thumping overhead, rising into the upper regions of the three-story house. The red-haired youngster knew his way about this house just as well as he knew his own. Only he tripped over a corner of the dining-room rug and bumped into two chairs in the darkened living-room before he reached the front hall. This was wide and was lighted above by ground-glass oval windows on all three flights of stairs. The mahogany balustrade was in a single smooth spiral, broken by no ornament. It offered a tempting course from garret to ground floor to any venturesome small boy. "All aboard!" shouted the voice overhead. "The Overland Limited," said the red-haired boy, grinning, and squinting up the well. "Ding-dong! ding-dong! All aboard for the Overland Limited! This way! No stop between Denver and Chicago! All aboard!" There was a scramble above and then the exhaust of the locomotive was imitated in a thin, boyish treble: "Sh-h! sh-h! sh-h! Choo! choo! choo! Ding-dong-ding! We're off—" A figure a-straddle the broad banister-rail shot into view on the upper flight. The momentum carried the boy around the first curve and to the brink of the second pitch. Down that he sped like an arrow, and so around to the last slant of the balustrade. "Next stop, Chi-ca-go!" yelled the boy on the rail. "All o-o-out! all out for Chicago!" And then, bang! he landed upon the hall rug. "How'd you know the board wasn't set against you, Bobby?" demanded the red-haired one. "You might have had a wreck." "Hello, Fred Martin. If I'd looked around and seen your red head, I'd sure thought they'd flashed a danger signal on me—though the Overland Limited is supposed to have a clear track, you know." Fred jumped on him for that and the two chums had a wrestling match on the hall rug. It was, however, a good-natured bout, and soon they sat side by side on the lower step of the first flight, panting, and grinned at each other. Bobby's hair was black, and he wore it much longer than Fred. To tell the truth, Fred had the "Riley cut," as the boys called it, so that his hair would not attract so much attention. Fred had all the temper that is supposed to go with red hair. Perhaps red-haired people only seem more quick tempered because everybody "picks on them" so! Bobby was quite as boisterous as his chum, but he was more cautious and had some control over his emotions. Nobody ever called Bobby Blake a coward, however. He was a plump-cheeked, snub-nosed boy, with a wide, smiling mouth, dancing brown eyes, and an active, sturdy body. Like his chum, he was ten years old. "Thought you had to work all this forenoon, cleaning the back yard?" said Bobby. "That's why I stayed home. 'Fraid some of the other fellows would want me to go off with them, and we agreed to go to Plunkit's Creek this afternoon, you know." "You bet you!" agreed Fred. "I got a dandy can of worms. Found 'em under that pile of rubbish in the yard when I hauled it out." "But you haven't cleared up all that old yard so soon?" determined Bobby, shaking his head. Fred grinned again. "No," he said. "I caught Buster Shea. He's a good fellow, Buster is. I got him to do it for me, and paid him a cent, and my ten glass agates, and two big alleys, and a whole cage-trap full o' rats—five of them—we caught in our barn last night. He's goin' to take 'em home and see if he can tame 'em, like Poley Smith did." "Huh!" snorted Bobby, "Poley's are white rats. You can't tame reg'lar rats." "That wasn't for me to tell him," returned Fred, briskly. "Buster thinks he can. And, anyway, it was a good bargain without the rats. He'll clean the yard fine." "Then let's get a lunch from Meena and I'll find my fish-tackle, and we'll start at once," exclaimed Bobby, jumping up. "Ain't you got to see your mother first?" "She knows I'm going. She won't mind when I go, as long as I get back in time for supper. And then—she ain't so particular 'bout what I do just now," added Bobby, more slowly. "Jolly! I wish my mother was like that," breathed Fred, with a sigh of longing. "Huh! I ain't so sure I like it," confessed Bobby. "There's somethin' goin' on in this house, Fred." "What do you mean?" demanded his chum, staring at him. "Pa and mother are always talkin' together, and shutting the door so I can't come in. And they look troubled all the time—I see 'em, when they stare at me so. Something's up, and I don't know what it is." "Mebbe your father's lost all his money and you'll have to go down and live in one of those shacks by the canal—like Buster Shea's folks," exclaimed the consoling Fred Martin. "No. 'Tain't as bad as that, I guess. Mother's gone shopping for a lot of new clothes to-day—I heard her tell Pa so at breakfast. So it ain't money. It—it's just like it is before Christmas, don't you know, Fred? When folks are hiding things around so's you won't find 'em before Christmas morning, and joking about Santa Claus, and all that." "Crickey! Presents?" exclaimed Fred. "'Tain't your birthday coming, Bob?" "No. I had my birthday, you know, two months ago." "What do you s'pose it can be, then?" "I haven't a notion," declared Bobby, shaking his head. "But it's something about me. Something's going to happen me—I don't know what." "Bully!" shouted Fred, suddenly smiting him on the shoulder. "Do you suppose they're going to let you go to Rockledge with me this fall?" "Rockledge School? No such luck," groaned Bobby. "You see, mother won't hear of that. Your mother has a big family, Fred, and she can spare you—" "Glad to get rid of me for a while, I guess," chuckled the red-haired boy. "Well, my mother isn't. So I can't go to boarding school with you," sighed Bobby. "Well," said the restless Fred, "let's get a move on us if we're going to Plunkit's." "We must get some lunch," said Bobby, starting up once more. "Say! has Meena got the toothache again?" "She didn't have her head tied up. But she's real cross," admitted Fred. "She'll have the toothache if I ask for lunch, I know," grumbled Bobby. "She always does. She says boys give her the toothache." Nevertheless, he led the way to the kitchen. There the tall, angular Swede cast an unfavorable light blue eye upon them. "I ban jes' clean up mine kitchen," she complained. "We just want a lunch to take fishing, Meena," said Master Bobby, hopefully. "You don't vant loonch to fish mit," declared Meena. "You use vor-rms." Fred giggled. He was always giggling at inopportune times. Meena glared at him with both light blue eyes and reached for the red flannel bandage she always kept warm back of the kitchen range. "I ban got toothache," she said. "I can't vool mit boys," and she proceeded to tie the long bandage around her jaws and tied it so that the ends—like long ears—stood right up on top of her head. "But you can give us just a little," begged Bobby. "We won't be back till supper time." This seemed to offer some comfort to the hard-working girl, and she mumbled an agreement, while she shuffled into the pantry to get the lunch ready. She did not speak English very well at any time, and when her face was tied up, it was almost impossible to understand her. Sometimes, if Meena became offended, she would insist upon waiting on table with this same red bandage about her jaws—even if the family had company to dinner! But in many ways she was invaluable to Mrs. Blake, so the good lady bore Meena's eccentricities. By and by the Swedish girl appeared with a box of luncheon. The boys dared not peek into it while they were under her eye, but they thanked her and ran out of the house. Fred was giggling again. "She looks just like a rabbit—all ears—with that thing tied around her head," he said. "Whoever heard of a rabbit with red ears?" scoffed Bobby. He was investigating the contents of the lunch box. There were nice ham sandwiches, minced eggs with mayonnaise, cookies, jumbles, a big piece of cheese, and two berry tarts. "Oh, Meena's bark is always worse than her bite," sighed Bobby, with thanksgiving. "And this bite is particularly nice, eh?" said Fred, grinning at his own pun. "Guess we won't starve," said Bobby. "Besides, there is a summer apple tree right down there by the creek—don't you know? If the apples are all yellow, you can't eat enough to hurt you. If they are half yellow it'll take a lot to hurt you. If they're right green and gnarly, about two means a hurry-up call for Dr. Truman," and Fred Martin spoke with strong conviction, having had experience in the matter. CHAPTER II APPLES AND APPLETHWAITE PLUNKIT Bobby found the little grape basket in which he kept his fishing-tackle on a beam in the woodshed. Clinton was an old fashioned town, and few people as yet owned automobiles. There were, therefore, not many garages, but plenty of rambling woodsheds and barns. When all the barns are done away with and there are nothing but garages left, boys will lose half their chance for fun! The Blakes' shed, and the stable and barn adjoining, offered a splendid play-place in all sorts of weather for Bobby and his friends. There were a pair of horses and a cow in the stable, too. Michael Mulcahey was the coachman, and he liked boys just as much as Meena, the Swedish girl, disliked them. This fact was ever a bone of contention between the old coachman and Meena. Otherwise Michael and Meena might have gotten married and gone to housekeeping in the little cottage at the back of the Blake property, facing on the rear street. "He ban in-courage them boys in their voolishness," accused Meena. "Me, I don't vant no boys aroundt. Michael, he vould haf the house overrun mit boys. So ve don't get married." Just now Michael was not at the barn. He had driven Mrs. Blake to the neighboring city in the light carriage, on her shopping trip. Bobby and Fred trailed through the back gate and down the lane, leaving the gate open. Later Meena had to run out and chase the chickens out of the tomato patch. Then she tied the red bandage in a harder knot and prepared to show herself a martyr to her mistress when it came supper time. Back of the Blake house the narrow street cut into a road that led right out into the country. There were plenty of houses lining this road at first, but gradually the distance between them became greater. Likewise the dust in the road grew deeper. It was not a way attractive to automobiles, and it had not been oiled as were many of the Clinton streets. "Let's take off our shoes and stockings and save our shoes," suggested Fred. "We'll go in swimmin' before we come back, so we'll be all clean." "Let's," agreed Bobby, and they sat down at once and accomplished the act in a few moments. They stuffed their stockings into their shoes, tied the laces together and slung them about their necks. The shoes knocked against their shoulder-blades as they trotted on, their bare feet scuffing up little clouds of dust. "We raise a lot of dust—just like the Overland Limited," said Bobby, looking back. Bobby had once travelled west with his parents, and they had come back by way of Denver. He had never forgotten his long ride in that fast train. "Go ahead!" declared Fred. "I'm the Empire State. You got to get up some speed to beat me." A minute later two balloons of dust could have been seen hovering over the road to the creek—the boys were shrouded in them. They ran, scuffing, as hard as they could run, and kicked up an enormous cloud of dust. They stopped at the stile leading into Plunkits' lower pasture. The boys from town never went near the farmhouse. Plunkits' was a big farm, and this end of it was not cultivated. If they went near the truck patches, somebody would be sure to chase them. There always had been a feud between the Clinton boys and the Plunkit family. But there wasn't a swimming hole anywhere around the town—or a fishing stream—like the creek. The Plunkits really had no right to drive anybody away from the stream, for the farm bordered only one side of it. The city boys could go across and fish from the other side all they wanted to. That had been long since decided. The best swimming hole was below the boundary of the Plunkit land, anyway, but this path across the pasture was a short-cut. "If we see that Applethwaite Plunkit and his dog, what are we going to do?" asked Fred, as they trotted along the sidehill path, white with road dust from head to foot. "Nothing. But if he sees us, that's another matter," chuckled Bobby. "All right. You're the smart one. But what will we do?" "Run, if he isn't too near," said Bobby, practically. "And suppose he is too near?" "Guess we'll have to run just the same," returned Bobby, thoughtfully. "He can lick either of us, Fred. And with the dog he can lick us both at once. That dog is real savage. He's made him so, Ap Plunkit has." "I bet we could pitch on Ap and fix him," said the combative Fred. "Now, you just keep out of trouble if you can, Fred Martin," advised Bobby, cautiously. "You know—if you get into a fight, you'll catch it when you get home. Your father will be sure to hear of it." "Well! what am I going to do if they pitch on me?" demanded Fred. "'Turn the other cheek,'" chuckled Bobby, "like Miss Rainey, our Sunday-school teacher, says." "Huh! that's all right. A fellow's got two cheeks; but if you get a punch in the nose, you can't turn your other nose—you haven't one! So now!" declared the very literal and pugnacious Fred. Just then they came close enough to the creek to see the willows along the hank. At the corner of the Plunkit fence there stood a big apple tree—a "summer sweetnin'" as the country folk called it. "Scubbity-yow!" ejaculated Fred Martin. "See those apples? And they're yellow!" "Some of them are," admitted his chum. "More'n half of them, I declare. Say! we're going to have a feast, Bob. Come on!" Bobby grabbed him by the sleeve. "Hold on! don't go so fast, Fred," exclaimed the brown-eyed boy. "Those apples aren't ours." "But they're going to be," returned Fred, grinning. "Now, you don't mean that," said Bobby, seriously. "You know you mustn't climb that tree, or pick apples on this side of the fence. Here's where we crawl through. Now! lots of the limbs overhang this other side of the fence—and there's a lot of ripe apples on the ground." "Pshaw! the Plunkits would never know," complained Fred. But he followed Bobby through the break in the pasture fence, just the same. Bobby was just as much fun as any boy in Clinton; Fred knew that. Yet Bobby was forever "seeing consequences." He kept them both out of trouble very often by seeing ahead. Whereas Fred, left to himself, never would stop to think at all! They had come two miles and a half. Where were there ever two boys who could walk as far as that without "walking up an appetite"? "My goodness me, Fred!" exclaimed Bobby, as they came to the clear-water creek in which the pebbles and sand were plainly visible on the bottom. "My goodness me, Fred! aren't you dreadfully hungry?" "I could eat the label off this tomato can—just like a goat!" declared Fred, shaking the can which held the fishworms before his chum's face and eyes. "Then let's eat before we bait a hook," suggested Bobby. "I don't care if Meena does have the toothache. She makes de-lic-ious sandwiches." "Scubbity-yow! I should say she did," agreed Fred, sitting down cross-legged on the grass under a spreading oak that here broke the hedge of willows bordering the stream. The boys soon had their mouths full. It was not yet noon, but the sun was high in the heavens, and it twinkled down at them between the interlacing leaves and twigs of the oak. A little breeze played with the blades of grass. A thrush sang his heart out, swinging on a cane across the stream. A locust whirred like a policeman's rattle in a tall poplar a little way down the creek. In the distance a crow cawed lazily as he winged his way across a field, early plowed for grain. "This is a fine place," said Bobby. "I just love the country." "This is the way it is at Rockledge," declared Fred, proudly. "How do you know? You've never been there." "But Sam Tillinghast, who comes to see us once in a while, went to Rockledge before he went to college. He says Rockledge is right up on a bluff overlooking Monatook Lake, and that a fellow can have more fun there than a box of monkeys!" "I never had a box of monkeys," said Bobby, grinning, and with his mouth full. "That's all right. I wish you were going," said Fred, wagging his head. "Don't you suppose that's what's the matter at your house—what your pa and your mother are thinking about?" "No," said Bobby, wagging his head, sadly. "I guess it ain't nothing as good as going to boarding school. You see, they look so solemn when I catch them staring at me." "Maybe you've done something and they are thinking of punishing you?" suggested Fred. "No. I haven't done a thing. I really haven't! I'd thought of that, and I just went back over everything I've done this vacation, and I can't think of a thing," decided Bobby, reflectively. "Well, if it's something bad, you'll find out soon enough what it is," said Fred, playing a regular Job's comforter. "And if it is something good, I suppose they'll worry me to death—or pretty near—too, eh!" "Mebbe if we could find a Gypsy woman she'd tell your fortune and you'd know," said Fred. "Yah! I don't believe in such stuff," declared Bobby. "You remember that old woman that came around selling baskets last spring and wheedled that ten cents out of you? She only told you that you were going to cross water and have a great change on the other side." "Well, she knew!" exclaimed Fred, earnestly. "Didn't I fall into the canal the very next day and have to swim across it; and you brought me a change of clothing from home? Huh! I guess that old woman hit it about right," declared the red-haired boy, with conviction. Bobby chuckled a long time over this. It amused him a great deal. He and his chum had eaten up nearly the whole of Meena's luncheon—and she had not been niggardly with it, either. "I'm going to have some of those apples," declared Fred. "Come on." "All right," agreed Bobby, who had no compunctions about taking the apples on this side of the fence. He believed that the Plunkits had no claim upon the fruit that overhung somebody else's land! That is the usual belief of small boys in the country, whether it is legally correct, or not. When the chums bit into the yellow apples on the ground they found that almost every one had been seized by a prior claimant. Fred bit right through a soft, white worm! "Oh! oh! oh!" exclaimed the red-haired boy, and ran down to the creek's edge to rinse his mouth. "Isn't that awful?" "Don't bite blindly," advised Bobby, chuckling. "You were too eager." "I'm going to have a decent apple," declared Fred, coming back. He jumped up, seized one of the lower branches of the apple tree, and scrambled up to a seat on a strong limb. Several tempting looking "summer sweetnin's" were within his reach. He seized one, looked it all over for blemishes and, finding none, set his teeth in it. "How is it?" asked Bobby, biting carefully around a wormy apple. "Fine," returned his chum, and tossed Bobby an apple he plucked. At that very moment a voice hailed them from a distance, and a dog barked. "There's that Applethwaite Plunkit and his dog," gasped Bobby. "Sure it is," said Fred, turning his gaze upon the lanky boy of twelve, or so, and the big black and brown dog that were running together across the pasture. "Now we're in for it!" exclaimed Bobby, somewhat worried. CHAPTER III FRED IN TROUBLE Fred sat kicking his bare heels together and grinning over the fence at the Plunkit boy and his dog. "Get down out of that tree—you!" exclaimed the Plunkit boy. "Who says so?" demanded Fred. "I do." "Well, say it again," responded Master Fred, in a most tantalizing way. "I like to hear you." Applethwaite Plunkit was not a nice looking boy at all. He had perfectly white hair, but he wasn't an albino, for albinoes have pink-rimmed eyes. His eyes were very strange looking, however, for they were not mates. One was one color, and one was another. There are many such afflicted people in the world; usually they have one gray eye and one brown one. But Ap Plunkit had one eye that was of a sickly brown color, while the other was of a sickly green. That means that the "whites" of his mismated eyes were yellowish in hue. Perhaps, because of this misfortune, the other boys plagued him, and that had soured his temper. He was very angry with Fred. "Get out of that tree, you red-headed monkey!" he shouted, "or I'll set my dog on you!" "I won't do it, you white-headed donkey—and your dog can't get me; not unless he can climb a tree," added Fred, grinning again. "I'll come over there and knock you out of it," threatened Ap. "I'd like to see you do it," responded Fred, swinging his feet again. "I'll show you!" cried Ap, and he started for the hole in the fence. "Come on, Rove!" he called to the dog. The big dog followed his master. He was part Newfoundland and would have made a fine playmate for any boy, if he had not been trained to be ugly with all strangers. When he got through the fence and saw Bobby standing idly by, he growled at him. "Look out, Bob!" shouted Fred. "He'll bite you." "I'm not doing anything," said Bobby Blake. "And you had better not set your dog on me, Plunkit." "You fellers are too fresh," said the farm boy. "My father says you're not to come around here—" "Your father doesn't own this land, and your father doesn't own this creek," whipped in Fred, from the branch. "You fellers came across our land to get here," declared Ap. "How do you know that, Mr. Smartie?" asked Fred. He had just finished eating an apple. He threw the core at the dog and hit him on the nose. Rover growled and then jumped up and snapped at Master Fred's bare heels. "Scubbity-yow!" shrieked the daring Fred, kicking up his heels excitedly. "Didn't get me that time, did you? I'm not your meat." "You stop that, Ap," ordered Bobby. "Call off your dog." He had not been altogether idle. There was a heavy club of hard wood lying nearby, and he seized it. "He'd better get down out of that tree or Rove will eat him up," said Ap, boastfully. "Those branches overhang this land. The apples don't belong to you any more than they do to us," said Bobby, and he thought he was quite right in saying so. "Yah!" scoffed Ap. "He had to climb the tree-trunk to get there, and the tree's on our side of the fence." "Didn't neither, Mr. Smartie!" cried Fred, in delight. "I jumped up and grabbed a limb, and pulled myself up. Have an apple?" and he aimed one of the hard, green ones at Ap. "Don't you do that, Fred!" called up Bobby, in haste. "Well, then, I'll give it to the dog," said Fred, throwing the apple to Rover. "You come down out of that tree, and you stop pelting my dog!" commanded Applethwaite Plunkit. "Yes—I—will!" responded Fred, biting into another apple. "Well! I'll lick one of you, anyway!" exclaimed Ap, who had been slily stepping nearer. And immediately he threw himself on Bobby. He caught the latter so unexpectedly that he couldn't have used the club had he wished to. "Come on, Rove!" shrieked Ap. "Bite him, boy—bite him!" "You stop that!" shouted the red-haired boy in the tree. "Bobby hasn't done a thing—" The dog growled and ran around the two struggling boys. Perhaps he was looking for a chance to bite his master's antagonist. At least, it looked so. Bobby Blake, although never a quarrelsome lad, was no mollycoddle. Attacked as he had been, he struggled manfully to escape the bigger boy. He dropped the club, but he tore off Ap's hat and flung it into the creek. "Go for it, sir! After it!" he screamed, and Rover heard him and saw the hat. That was one of the dog's accomplishments. He was a Newfoundland, and retrieving articles from the water was right in his line. He barked and bounded to the edge of the steep bank. He evidently considered that, after all, his master and Bobby were only playing, and this part of the play he approved of. The instant Bobby heard the splash of the big dog into the water, he twisted in Ap's grasp, tripped him, and fell on top of the larger boy. "Oh! oh! oh!" gasped Ap. "You're hurtin' me—you're killin' me! I can't breathe—" "Scubbity-yow!" yelled Fred, giving voice to his favorite battle-cry, and he dropped from the apple tree, running to Bobby's help. But Bobby got up and released the bawling farm-boy at once. "Come on, Fred," he said. "Let's get out o' here." "Why, you got the best of him!" cried Fred, in disgust. "Let's duck him! Let's throw him in after his old dog." "No you don't," declared Bobby, seizing Fred's hand. "We're going to get out while we have the chance. I only tripped him and got the dog out of the way so you could escape." "Huh!" exclaimed Fred. "I didn't get as many apples as I wanted." "I don't care. You come on," said his chum. "Whoever heard of the winning side giving way like this?" grumbled the red-haired boy. "Anyway," he added, picking up the club Bobby had lost, "if that dog comes after us, I'll hit him." Bobby picked up the box containing the remainder of their luncheon, and led the way through the bushes. The dog had come ashore, and it and Ap Plunkit were quickly out of sight. Fred was still grumbling about leaving the foe to claim "the best of it." "He'll pitch on us next time, just the same," he declared. "Why didn't you punch him when you had him down, Bob?" "Aw, come on!" said his chum. "Always wanting to get into a fight. You keep that up when you get to Rockledge School, and you'll be in hot water all the time." "Shucks!" grinned Fred. "I'd like to be in cold water right now. The swimming hole isn't far away. Let's." "We can't go in but once—you know we can't," said Bobby. "Why not?" demanded Fred, quickly. "Because we promised our mothers we wouldn't go in but once a day this vacation." "Huh! That ain't saying but what we can take off our clothes and put on our swimming trunks, and stay in all day long." "That would be just as dishonest as going in two or three times, Fred," exclaimed Bobby. "And you wouldn't do it. Besides," he added, grinning; "you know you tried that last summer, and 'member what you got for it?" "You bet you!" exclaimed the red-haired one. "I got sunburned something fierce! No. I won't do that again. That's the day we built the raft on Sanders' Pond, and oh, how I hurt! I guess I do remember, all right." "No," said Bobby, after a minute. "We'll go fishing first, and then take a swim before we go home. That'll clean us up, and make us feel fresh. There's that old stump again, Fred. I believe there's a big trout lives under that stump. Don't you 'member! We've seen him jump." "Ya-as," scoffed Fred. "But that old fellow won't jump for a worm. He's had too many square meals this summer, don't you know? It'll take a fancy fly, like those my Uncle Jim uses when he goes fishing, to coax Mr. Trout out of the creek." "I'm going to try," said Bobby, who could be obstinate in his opinion. "I'll be satisfied if I catch a shiner," declared Fred. "I'll try off that rock yonder. Come on! There's a couple of dandy fishpoles." Like real country boys, Bobby and Fred cut poles each time they went fishing. No need to carry them back and forth to their homes in Clinton and it did not take five minutes to cut and rig these poles. "What nice, fat worms," said Bobby, when Fred shook up the tomato can. "That's what the robin said," chuckled Fred. "Know what my sister, Betty, said yesterday morning? You know it rained the night before and the robins were picking up worms on the lawn right early—before breakfast. "Bet was at the window and one fat robin picked up a worm, swallowed it, and flew right up into a tree where he began to sing like sixty! Bet says: "'Oh! that robin gives me the squirms; how can he sing that way when he's all full of those crawly things?'" "Now hush!" ordered Bobby, the next moment. "I'm going to drop this nice fellow right down beside that stump and see if I can coax Mr. Trout up." But Mr. Trout did not appear. Bobby, with exemplary patience, tried it again and again. He changed his bait and dropped a fresh worm into the brown, cloudy water where he believed the trout lay. "You're not fishing," chuckled Fred, from his station on the rock, a few yards away. "You're just drowning worms." "Huh!" returned Bobby. "I don't see any medals on you. You haven't caught anything." "But I'm going to!" whispered Fred, swiftly, and holding his pole with sudden attention. Then, with a nervous jerk, he flung up the pole. Hook and sinker came with it, and a tiny, wriggling, silver fish, about a finger long, shot into the air. But Fred had not been careful to select his stand, and he drove his line and fish up among the branches of a tree. "Now you've done it—and likely scared my trout," exclaimed Bobby. Fred, in his usual impulsive fashion, tried to jerk back his line. The hook and sinker were caught around a branch. The shiner dropped off the hook and rested in a crotch of the branch. No fish ever was transformed into a bird so quickly since fishing was begun! And while Bobby laughed, and held his sides, Fred jerked at the entangled line again and again until, stepping too far back, and pulling too hard, the line chanced to give a foot or two, Master Fred fell backwards and—flop! into the deep pool below the rock he went! |
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