Hen and Snoopie returned to their stations. You ruefully twisted your hook from the rotten wood and tried in a new place for bullheads.
You tired of this location and changed to a log; and tiring of the log, you changed to a rock; and tiring of the rock, you changed to a jutting bank; and tiring of the bank, you waded into the shallows, where, at least, the flies could not torment your legs. In the course of your wanderings your can toppled; you snatched at it but it evaded you, gurgled, and gently sank beneath. You borrowed bait from more or less unwilling brethren, or appealed to the most respectable of the riffraff cans scattered about. From the zenith the sun glared down upon your neck, and from the water the sun glared up into your face, and neck and face waxed red and redder; turtles poked their heads forth and inspected you; and dragon-flies darted at your bobber and settled upon it, giving you starts as you thought for an instant that you had a bite. You pricked your fingers on the “stingers” of vengeful victims, and you cut your feet on tin and shell and sharp root and branch; you luxuriously dined on butter-soaked bread and salt-less eggs (the salt being spilled), and you drank of water which, in these scientific later days, we know with horror to have been alive with deadly bacilli; and Snoopie, lying on his back, with his hat over his eyes, tied his line to his big toe and went to sleep.
Finally, spotted with mud and mosquito-bumps, scarlet with burn and bristling with experiences, in the sunset glow homeward you trudged, over your shoulder your faithful pole, and your hapless spoil, ever growing drier and dustier and more wretched, dangling from your hand.
“Mercy, John! What do you bring those home for!” expostulated mother, from a safe distance surveying your catch, none thereof longer than a clothes-pin.
“Why, to eat,” you explained.
And she fried them for you, her very self.
IN SOCIETY