“You’ve been out in the rain enough for once,” said Ben; “I shan’t let you go out again till it’s done raining. I think you had better go to bed and finish your nap.”
“We are all here together,” said Charlie, “and can’t do anything else; let’s make some baskets; ’twill be money in our pockets, for we have none on hand; I’ve got stuff in the house all pounded.”
They made a fire in the great fireplace, and sitting around it, made baskets, and laid new plans. At noon the weather cleared; but after eating a hearty dinner, and the fatigue and excitement of the night’s adventure, the boys felt but little inclined to engage in anything that required active exertion. They lolled on the grass a while, and at length Charlie proposed that they should go a fishing. The tides being very high, the water had flowed up to the fissure in the ledge where the brook ran over. A whole school of smelts and tom-cods, taking advantage of this, had come up with the tide, and the mouth of the brook was full of them. After fishing a while, Fred Williams tied his handkerchief to four sticks, and putting some bait in it, and a stone to sink it, fastened a line to each corner, and let it down into the water. The smelts going in to eat the bait, he gradually drew it up, and, when almost at the surface, gave a quick jerk; but the water was so long filtering through the handkerchief that they all swam out.
“I can fix them, I know,” said Charlie.
He got a bushel basket, and took out small pieces of the filling to make it a little more open, put in bait, and sunk it. After the fish were in he drew it slowly up. The basket being deep, and the fish well to the bottom, they did not take alarm until the rim was almost at the top of the water. Charles then jerked it out, when the water ran through the open basket so quickly, that, unable to escape, they were caught. When satisfied with this sport, they selected the largest for their supper, and Charles gave the rest to his hens.
When they awoke the next morning the sun was shining in their faces, and coming down stairs they were astonished to find it was nine o’clock, and that Ben had eaten his breakfast, and gone to work in the woods.
“Well, boys,” said Sally, “which do you like the best, the tree top, the pine stub, or the bed up stairs?”
“The bed up stairs is first rate,” replied John, “as you may judge by the length of our nap; but the pine stub for me.”
As they were eating and chatting, Ben came running in for his gun, saying there was a seal in the cove.
“O, do let me shoot him!” cried John, leaping from the table.