Bobby looked up the road where he hadn't explored yet, and then looked back the way he'd come, and then he smiled at Marthy and took off his cap to her.
“Thank you, Missus Smith,” he says.
Marthy laughed as happy as a girl, and kissed him right on his dusty face. She put her arms around him, even, and acted like she had never seen a freckled boy before.
“Nice boy,” I remarked, when Bobby had gone down the road toward town.
“Nice!” says the little woman. “Nice! Is that all you can scrape up to say? Why, there ain't a dearer child in our end of town than what Bobby is. He's my sweetheart when you ain't at home. Hiram,” she says, looking back at him as he paddled along kicking up the dust with his bare toes, “I wonder if we dare take him with us?”
“What about his ice-cream?” I says. “What about having a kid dragging after us all day?” So we went on, but I seen she felt a little mite lonely-like, as you might say. Which was queer.
By ten o'clock we had got far enough from town, and we pushed through a field that was all covered with flowers, and over to where the brook was, with the tangle of trees and brush hiding it, and when I pushed apart the brush to go through, I stopped and motioned for Marthy to come quiet and look.
There, sittin' on a tree trunk, as quiet as you please, was Teddy Lawrence, with his eyes glued on to his bobber, and thinkin' of nothing in the world but fish. I'm a right hearty fisher myself, and it done my heart good to see the strictly-business way that kid had. Marthy moved a little, and I put my hand on her to make her keep still.
The boy lifted up his pole and looked at the bait like a regular old hand. He dug a fresh, fat worm out of his can, and fixed it, and then I fairly held my breath. Would he do it? No! But, hold on—yes! He leaned over and spit on the bait to bring luck, just as natural as life! Say, wasn't that real boy for you? I let the brush come together real quiet, and me and Marthy slipped away.