“Father won’t know it; our girls ain’t going to-day; so there’s nobody to tell.”
“But you’ll know it yourself, Fred.”
“I don’t care.”
“If you won’t play truant, I’ll go some Saturday with you.”
“Saturdays father makes me work in the mill; he thinks I don’t want to play, as other boys do.”
John could not persuade him to go to school; so they started off together. They spent the forenoon in gunning. At noon they made a fire on the rocks, made some clay porridge, then took a sea-fowl and dipped into it, feathers and all, coating it completely with clay; they then dug a hole in the ground, filling it partly with stones, which they made red hot; on these they put the bird, then threw back the loose earth. After a proper time they took it out, and peeled off the clay, which brought the feathers and skin with it, leaving the carcass clean and well cooked.
John had brought pepper, salt, and butter, and they had plenty of bread and meat in their dinner-pails. Tige wouldn’t touch the bird; so they gave him the meat.
“How good this is!” said Fred, with the wing of a sheldrake in his mouth; “how glad I am I didn’t go to school!”
John made no reply, for his mouth was full; neither did he approve of playing truant. They now went to Uncle Isaac’s brook, fishing. The frost-fish swim up into the mouth of little brooks, where the water is only about two or three inches deep, and are very slow in their movements in cool weather. The boys caught them by fastening a cod-hook to a stick, three or four feet long, and hauling them out. They set out on their return in good season, that Fred might get home at the proper time, and escape detection.
As they came to the landing, John jumped out to haul the boat ashore, while Fred pushed with an oar; the boat, striking a rock, stopped so suddenly, that he fell down into the bottom of her, and stuck one of the hooks into his thigh. The remorseless steel buried itself in the flesh beyond the barb. There was the miserable boy, with both hands behind him, holding himself up, afraid either to get up or sit down, as he could not move an inch without taking with him the great stick to which the hook was fastened. John, reaching carefully under him, cut the string which fastened it to the hook, letting it fall off.