"Oh, here comes Reginald!"
The Princess ran to meet a trim, precise looking young man in a linen helmet, canvas coat and trousers and a pair of high boots, who was coming down the steep bank with a beautiful new rod and reel on his shoulder. Slung across the other shoulder was a large bag. This was to put his fish in—when he had caught them. Toots never moved from his seat on the boulder.
"Now, if you children will keep quiet," said Reginald, as he fastened a brilliant contrivance of scarlet feathers and glittering silver on the end of his slender silken line, "we shall have fried pike for supper."
"I'd rather have pickerel, if you please," said Toots.
"Pickerel never bite at this time of day," answered Reginald, with authority. He stepped to the water's edge, where the brook entered the river, and raised his rod. Swish! went the delicate bit of bamboo through the air, the reel whizzed and the silken line shot far down the stream. When the glittering bauble at its end struck the water, Reginald wound up the reel slowly, anxiously watching the tip of the rod. Toots and the Princess looked on in silence, the Princess because of her admiration for the natty figure, and Toots out of politeness. But the boy had small respect for Reginald's abilities as a fisherman. Farmer John, with his crooked old pole and grubs for bait, was Toots' ideal in the fishing line. Besides, John had told him about the Pickerel Family whose home was in this same pool.
Suddenly the Princess exclaimed: "Oh, here comes Reginald!"