CHAPTER IV.

HUNGRY FISHES.

IT was about two o'clock when Bessie, basket in hand, started to go on the nutting excursion which Nelly and Martin had planned for that day.

She scarcely liked to be absent long, for she knew her mother was not quite as well as usual, and then, too, the water-cresses were to be gathered and prepared for the next day's market. At all events she made up her mind to get home early, long before the sun should set.

It was but a short walk of a half mile to Nelly's home; Martin and Nelly were ready, so that no time was consumed in waiting.

It was even a more beautiful day than the one on which the previous nutting had taken place. The woods were brighter colored than ever, and the golden autumn mist seemed to cover every thing with beauty. It hung in wreaths around the tops of the high trees, and swayed softly back and forth when the breeze stirred it. The boats on the river could scarcely be discerned through it, and the opposite shores were entirely hidden.

"This is Dolly's _well_ day," said Bessie, "I asked her father and he told me so."

"Martin says you are going to sell him some water-cresses," said Nelly; "at least, I suppose he was the one; did you?"

"Yes," said Bessie; "that is, he sold them _for_ me, which is the same thing you know. He brought me three _big_ pieces of money for them at noon, and I put 'em in a nut-shell and shut 'em up."

"A nut-shell?" repeated Martin, "that is a funny bank, I think."

"It's a safe one," said Bessie, "and it will not break and keep the money like some of those I have heard of in town. Just look at those bitter-sweets, Nell, aren't they bright?"

"I mean to get some," cried Nelly, as she paused to admire the red sprays of the berries that grew at the side of the short-cut path they were pursuing. "I will take them home to mother to put in her winter bouquets of dried grasses, that stand on the parlor mantle-shelf. They will enliven them and make them much handsomer."

"Why not wait till we return?" said Martin; "you will have all the trouble of carrying them to the woods and back again, and perhaps lose them by the way."

"I know too much for that," said Nelly, laughing; "we may not come back by this road, and then I should not get them at all. Last week I lost some in the same way: I went out walking with Miss Milly over the mountains, and we came to some beauties near Mulligan's little shanty. We thought to save ourselves trouble by leaving them till we returned. Something or other tempted us to strike into another path when we came back, so that our bitter-sweets are on the top of the mountain yet."

"No," said Bessie, "I don't think they are. Did they grow over a big rock, and were there plenty of sumach bushes between them and the path?"

"Yes," said Nelly, beginning to pull down the rich clusters of the bitter-sweets, and breaking them off, one by one.

"Well," said Bessie, making a deep, mock courtesy, "I have the pleasure of having those berries in my own bedroom at this blessed minute. I went to Mulligan's on an errand of mother's, a few days ago, and I brought them down the mountain with me."

"Her loss was your gain, wasn't it?" said Martin, as he aided Nelly to gather the berries.

"I'll help too," said Bessie, "for I'm in a _dreadful_ hurry to get back, Nelly. I have all my cresses to pick for market," and she too broke off the bunches and laid them carefully in Nelly's basket.

"What!" said Nelly, "_more_ cresses, Bessie?"

"Yes," said Bessie, giving a joyful hop, and, as her mother called it, cutting a caper; "and that isn't all, for Dolly's father wants lots and lots _and_ lots more of 'em! Come, I guess you have plenty now, let's go on."

Nelly consented to do so, but first Martin took out of his pocket a handful of tangled twine, and with a piece of it tied the bitter-sweet berries together by the stems, and suspended them in a bunch from her apron strings, so that her basket might be ready for the nuts.

Martin was a farm boy who worked at Nelly's father's place. He was a good, steady lad, and the two girls liked very much to have his company in their excursions. It was not often, however, that he could be spared, and the present occasion was, therefore, quite a holiday in his estimation.

When the children reached the little house near the wood, they were surprised to see Dolly standing in the gateway quite equipped for the ramble. She had a large basket on her arm, and a long hickory stick in her hands. Nelly introduced Martin, who stood a little aloof when the girls first met, and then Dolly asked them if they would not all come in and rest, but the children thought that it was best not to do so. Hearing voices, the farmer came to the door of the farm house to see them off. He looked pleased to find Dolly with the little girls.

"That's right," he said, "I'm glad to have my Dolly tramping about like other folks' children. It will do her good. But don't stay late: the damp of the evening is very unwholesome for the nager."

"Oh, we are coming back long before night, sir," said Bessie, cheerfully, "'cause I've got all my cresses to pick for to-morrow. Mother and I are _so_ much obliged to you, I can't really _tell_ how much!"

"Quite welcome, quite welcome," said Mr. Dart; "I'll be on the look-out for another basket to-morrow then."

As the four children walked briskly along the path through the woods, Nelly looked with some curiosity at Dolly's stick. She could not imagine for what purpose it was intended. It was not very stout, nor apparently very heavy; at the upper end it was a little curved. Dolly seemed to use it for a staff, and several times helped herself over some rough and stony places with it. When the walking was good she carried it carelessly over her shoulder, with her basket swinging at the crooked end.

A short time brought the party to the place where they had found so many nuts only a day or two before. Much to their surprise and mortification the trees which were lately so loaded, were now perfectly bare. Some one had evidently been there during the time that intervened, and had carried away the prize. There were several large piles of the outer shells scattered about on the ground, but that was all.

"What shall we do," asked Bessie, mournfully; "I don't think we can find another such spot as this was in the whole woods. This clump of trees was as full as it could be only the day before yesterday."

Dolly took her stick and poked among the branches to see if any remained. She found about half a dozen, which she knocked down and put in her basket.

"Now I know," said Nelly, "what Dolly brought that pole for,--to knock down the nuts."

"Yes," said Dolly, surveying the stick in question with some pride, "it is splendid for that. I call it my cherry-tree hook, and I use it in cherry time to pull the branches towards me. But come, we must push on and seek our fortunes. Haven't an _idee_ of goin' home without my basket full."

"I give up, for one," said Bessie, despondently, "I don't think we can find a thick place again."

"Never mind, Bessie," said Martin, with good-nature, "we'll find a _thin_ one then. We'll do the best we can, you may be sure. Come, girls, I'll lead the way. Let us follow this little footpath and see where it will take us."

He spoke in an encouraging tone, and suiting the action to the word, walked on ahead. The girls followed him in silence. The underbrush through which the path led was very thick and high, and for a short distance nothing could be discerned on either side. The thorns caught into the clothing of the little party, and they found this by no means an added pleasure. It was not long, however, before the track broadened into a wide, open space, something similar to the one they had just quitted, dotted here and there with trees, but, as fortune would have it, none of them were nut trees. They were on the point of penetrating still further towards the heart of the wood, when a loud rustling among the dead branches and dried leaves of the path made the children turn to discover what was the matter.

A joyful barking followed, and a rough-looking dog bounded out, and began prancing about and leaping upon Dolly.

"Oh, it's only our old Tiger," she exclaimed; "down, Tige, down, sir!"

But Tiger was so delighted at having succeeded in finding his young mistress, that he did not cease indulging in his various uncouth gambols, until Dolly, stamping her foot and assuming an air of great severity, bade him _be quiet_, or she would send him immediately home. Tiger seemed to understand the threat, for he stopped barking and instantly darted several hundred feet in advance of the party.

"He does that so that I cannot make him go back," cried Dolly, laughing at the sagacity of her favorite; "I never tell him I will send him home, but that he runs ahead so as to make it impossible for me to do as I say."

They continued their wanderings for some distance further, but with very poor success.

"I'll tell you what we can do," said Martin, with a laugh, as exclamations of vexation and disappointment were heard from the girls; "let's turn our nutting into a fishing excursion. Wouldn't it be nice if we should each go home with a string of fish?"

"Fish!" cried Nelly, "what _do_ you mean, Martin?"

"I never heard of anybody catchin' fish in the woods!" said Dolly. "There isn't a drop of water nearer than the pond the other side of Morrison's hill."

"Well," said Martin, "I know there is not, but that is not so very far off. I was just thinking of the shortest way to get there."

"I know every inch of the country," said Dolly, firmly, "and I'm _sure_ Morrison's pond is at least a good two mile from here."

"Oh, we can't walk _that_, Martin," cried Bessie; "we should all be tired, and get home after dark besides."

"Now," said Martin, smiling, "I do not wish to contradict anybody, but I am acquainted with a path, a rather rough one to be sure, that will bring us, in about twenty minutes, to the edge of the pond. You know it is not as far away as people think, the crooked, winding road making it appear a long way off, when in reality it lies in a straight line only about half a mile from the village."

"But if we conclude to go, we can't _fish_," said Dolly.

"Why not?" quietly asked Martin.

"We haven't a line or a hook among us," put forth Nelly, "at least I am sure _I_ haven't."

"Well _I_ have," replied Martin, "provided you will not despise bent pins for hooks, pieces of the twine that is left of that I tied your bitter-sweet berries with for lines, a hickory stick like Dolly's for a rod, and earth worms for bait. There now, haven't I furnished the whole party with tackle? Come, don't let us go home without having _something_ to take with us."

Dolly sat down on the stump of a tree and began to laugh.

"The idee," she said, "of going nutting and bringing home _fish_. Well, I'm willing, for one, if it's only to find out the path. I thought I knew all the ins and outs around here."

"And I'd like to go too," said Nelly.

"I should _like_ to go well enough," added Bessie, "if it wasn't that I feel sure the extra walk will just bring me home too late for my cresses. Mother is sick, too, and she cannot be left alone very long; and Dolly, you know your father said you must not stay out late."

"Yes," said Dolly, "I know he did, and I don't mean to disobey, but it can't be very late _yet_; I should think not more than half past three."

Martin looked up at the sun and then down to the shadows on the ground.

"No," said he, "it is not more than half past three. I am in the habit of telling time by the sun, and I know it is not later than that. Come, Bessie, three to one is the way the case stands. I guess you will be home time enough."

Bessie stood irresolute. She wished to go fishing, and she wished to return home. It was hard to choose. At last she said,

"It will be four at least when I get back. I must go."

"Then you break up the party," said Nelly, in a dissatisfied tone.

"And you spoil the pleasure," added Dolly, leaning on her stick and looking at Bessie.

"And you send us all home with empty baskets when we might each have a string of fish," continued Martin. "_Do_ stay!"

The children surrounded Bessie, and tried to persuade her. At length she ceased to resist. She endeavored to assure herself that she was acting right, but she felt uneasy as she did so, and the picture of her mother, lying so long alone in her sick room, rose up to her mind. Still the temptation was before her, and she yielded to it. The truth was, that Bessie had great confidence in Martin, and when he said that he thought there was plenty of time, she reasoned with herself that he was a great deal older than she was, and probably knew best; so she consented to join the fishing party. The moment she said "yes," Martin exclaimed,

"This way then; follow me, all of you, and we will soon reach the short-cut track. It is about here somewhere. Let us hurry so as to lose no time."

The path was speedily found as he had said, and the children walked as rapidly after him as the rough stones which lay in the way, and the projecting branches of blackberry bushes would permit.

When they reached the pond, Martin took out the pocket knife which he usually carried about him, and cut down four slender young trees which he found growing between the pond and the public wagon-road at its side. He gave these to Nelly and asked her if she would tie the strings securely fast to the smallest ends, while he and Bessie overturned stones in search of worms, and Dolly bent the points of the pins so as to resemble hooks.

"Why will not my staff do for a pole?" asked Dolly, as she hammered at the pins with a large pebble; "you said it would, Martin."

"That was before I saw these little trees," replied Martin. "The moment I came upon them, growing here in a group among the bushes, I knew they were just the things I wanted. They are thin and tapering, and your stick is not."

"What difference does that make?" said Dolly; "a pole is only for the purpose of casting the line out a good distance into the water, isn't it?"

"That is one use for it," said Martin, "but not all. If a pole is properly proportioned, that is, if it is the right size at the handle, and tapers gradually to the point, the fisherman can feel the least nibble, and know the exact moment when to draw up the line. If he could not feel the movement, the fish might, in the struggles occasioned by his pain, carry off bait and hook too."

"In our case that wouldn't be a great loss," laughed Dolly, and she held up the pins, neatly bent into shape.

"Martin," said Bessie, in a low voice, as she stooped to raise a stone at his side, "I guess I don't care to fish, after all."

Martin saw something was amiss. Instead of giving utterance to a rude exclamation, or calling the attention of the others, he said in a kind tone,

"Why, Bessie, what is the matter now? Don't you feel right?"

Bessie shook her head. Martin saw there were tears in her eyes.

"I am sorry I coaxed you," he said. "I feel now as if I had not behaved as I ought."

"I never _did_ like to go fishing," said Bessie; "it _hurts_ me to see the poor little things pant and flounder when they are brought up. The moment I heard you speak of their struggling with the pain, I was sorrier than ever that I had come, and that made me think of mother, staying home alone with _her_ pain. I do believe I ought to go back at once."

"But you cannot find the way," said Martin; "you have never been here before."

"That is true," said Bessie, sighing. "Well, I do not wish to be a spoil-pleasure. Don't mind me, then, but you and the others begin your fishing, and if I see a wagon come by on the road that is going our way, I can jump in. I need not stop your sport if I do that."

Martin looked perplexed.

"I hardly like you to try it," he said, "and yet I do not wish you to stay against your will."

"Well," said Bessie, "I don't like to act _mean_, Martin. Go on fishing for a little while, at all events. I can wait half an hour or so, I suppose."

Nelly now called to Martin that the lines were ready, for Dolly had just finished tying on the last pin. He gathered up the bait he had found beneath the stones, and went towards the two other girls. He thought, on consideration, that he might fish for a short time, while waiting to see if a wagon approached on the road. If none did so within the allotted half hour, he made up his mind to go home. He blamed himself now for having changed the destination of the party.

"Here's my line," cried Dolly, holding it out at the end of her pole, "and now all that I and the fishes wait for is a worm."

Martin fastened one on Dolly's pin, one on Nelly's likewise, and one on the line he intended for himself.

"Come, Bessie," said Nelly, as she flung her line into the water, "come try _your_ luck."

"Bessie does not care about fishing," said Martin kindly, "do not press her if she does not wish it."

The pond was well stocked with a variety of small fishes, many of which were considered good eating by the farmers in the neighborhood. As scarcely any one ever took the trouble, however, to go after them, they were hardly acquainted with hooks or lines, and they were, consequently, all the more easily caught. Martin said he had never seen such hungry fishes before. They snapped at the bait the moment it was lowered to them, oftentimes carrying it entirely off, hook and all.

Once, and the children could scarcely believe it when they saw it, a fish called a bull-head leaped at least an inch above the water and tried to swallow the end of Dolly's line, which she was in the act of raising, to replace the pin and worm which some of his greedy kindred had just taken away.

Martin told the girls that if they would place themselves with him on an old trunk of a tree that apparently had fallen years before into the edge of the pond, they would probably find it to be a better position from which to throw their lines than the shore on which they had stood at first. "For," said he, "the larger fish do not like to venture into such shallow water." The trunk, however, was covered with moist moss, which made it very slippery, and Nelly came so near losing her balance and falling in, as she walked up it, that she concluded to remain where she was. Martin and Dolly did not meet with the same difficulty, however, and very soon they discovered that the nibbles were far more frequent than before. Martin kept a twig on which he slipped the fish as soon as caught, and then hung it on a branch of the moss-covered trunk. Bessie had begun to look on the proceedings with interest, feeling almost as sorry as her companions as a ravenous bull-head occasionally carried off the hooks, when she heard a noise on the road as of wheels. She ran to the bushes which, divided it from the pond, and putting her little face through, saw that the miller who lived in the village was passing with three or four large sacks of meal in a wagon drawn by a pair of horses. He was going the wrong way, but the thought occurred to her to stop him and ask how long it would be before he should return, and if he should do so by the same road. The miller was a stout, good-natured looking man, with an old hat and coat as white as his meal bags. He seemed astonished enough at seeing Bessie's head pop so suddenly out of the bushes in that lonely place.

"Why, Bessie," said he, laughing, "if I hadn't been as bold as a lion, perhaps I might have mistaken you for a mermaid that had just sprung out of the pond to have a little private conversation with me. Yes, I shall come back by this road. I have got to deliver my meal at the first house on the left, and then I turn towards home again. Is that your party that I catch a glimpse of on the pond?"

"Yes," said Bessie, "they're fishing. You wouldn't mind giving us a ride as far as you go, Mr. Watson, would you?"

Mr. Watson laughed, and said no he wouldn't, and telling her he should return in fifteen minutes, he drove on. Bessie hurried back to the children and related her news. She was careful not to be so selfish as to ask them to leave the pond to go with her, but she told them for their own benefit that the miller was willing to take the whole party. Enticing as the fishing was, the two girls were now far too tired to desire to walk home when they could ride very nearly all the way. Martin for his part would have liked to remain longer, but he saw that it would be ungenerous to refuse to accompany them, even if it had been early enough to do so, which it was not, for already the day was on the wane. So it was decided to leave the pond.

Martin put Dolly's share of the fishes on a separate twig, and very proud she was of them. She said she should fry them for her father's breakfast the next morning, before he started for market. The fishing poles were left lying near the old tree.

When the miller drove up to the place where Bessie had hailed him, he found the children awaiting him. Dolly and Martin, fish in hand, Nelly carrying her bitter-sweet berries, and Bessie with an empty basket, but a light heart at the thought that now she should reach home in good season to gather the cresses.