“There may be something in that too,” she answered.
“I know what I could do if you had brought your shears,” spoke up Jennie.
“I’d cut a thing from this,” holding up the piece of tin cut from the end of one of the cans of corn, “that Delbert could spear fish with.”
Delbert stared at her a minute, and then with one of his nervously quick movements possessed himself of the ragged bit of tin.
Marian had opened the can with his knife. He looked at it a moment and spoke excitedly. “We could! It wouldn’t be like a regular spear-head, but we could catch ’em. I know just how the Indians throw them. Bobbie has one, but he’s never caught anything yet.”
The idea was certainly worth trying. Marian would not ruin her precious buttonhole scissors cutting tin with them, but she scratched the pattern in the bit of tin and then went over it with the tip of the butcher-knife, denting it; and the dents, made deeper and deeper, finally became holes, and then soon there was her spear-head, such as it was, needing only to be smoothed up a little and filed and bound on the end of a smooth, slender stick that Delbert had been preparing.
Marian split the end of the stick a little and slipped in the bit of tin and bound the stick with thread that she had doubled and twisted till it was strong enough to suit her, then tied the lariat rope to the other end of the stick.
Delbert spent the next day in exercising the new tool. His patience was certainly marvelous. Hour after hour went by with no success, but he was sure he would be successful some other time.
“I’ll get on to it after a while,” he said, as they ate their supper of hot clam soup. “Those Indians at the Port catch them right along.”