"I'll be showin' you," Toby promised.
From a box he selected some heavy fishing line and three hooks. On the shank of the hooks, and just below the eye, was a cone shaped lead weight, moulded upon the shank. Each line was then attached to the end of a short, stiff stick about three feet in length, which he obtained from the woodpile outside. Then the hooks were attached to the lines, and cutting some pieces of pork rind, Toby announced that the "gear" was ready.
Violet had her things on, and armed with the equipment, the three set out expectantly for the ice, Toby picking up an ax to take with them as he passed through the wood porch.
"Here's where we fishes," said Toby, leading the way to a wide crack in the ice a few feet from shore and following the shore line, caused by the rising and falling of tide.
The crack at the point indicated by Toby was eighteen inches wide. With the ax he cut three holes at intervals of a few feet through a coating of three or four inches of young, or new ice, which had formed upon the ice in the crack. Then, baiting the hooks with pork rind, he gave one of the sticks with line and baited hook to Charley and one to Violet.
"The way you fishes now," he explained to Charley, "you just drops the hook into the water in a hole, and holdin' the stick keeps un movin' up and down kind of slow. When you feels somethin' heavy on the hook heave un out."
"Don't the trout fight after you hook them?" asked Charley. "I always heard they fought to get away, and you had to play them and tire them out before you landed them."
"They never fights in winter, and your fishin' pole is strong enough so she won't be hurt any by heavin' they out soon as you hooks un," grinned Toby. "'Tis too cold to play with un any. Just heave un up on the ice. They don't feel much like sportin' about this weather."
Charley had scarcely dropped his line into the water, when Violet gave a little scream of delight, and cried:
"I gets one! I gets the first un!" and with a mighty yank she flung a three-pound trout clear of the hole.