“Well, I’m glad I don’t live there, that’s all I can say then. I haven’t got a lock on my house over at the Corners, and I haven’t had since I built, nigh on twenty-two years ago.”
“What!” exclaimed Ben. “You don’t mean to say you don’t lock up nights, do you?”
“That’s just what I mean to say. I never had nothin’ stole since I’ve lived here. Folks is honest here, I tell ye. If anything is taken, it’ll be because some o’ the city folks what come down here summers has taken it. The city must be a dreadful place to live in. They say even flowers won’t grow there; an’ if the posies don’t like it, I don’t know what it must be when it comes to huming bein’s and boys. Heow ye goin’ to divide up yer party?”
It was speedily arranged that Jock and Bob should go with Ethan, and the other boys with Tom. The skiffs were at once prepared, and when the fishing tackle had been placed on board, the boys took their seats as the men directed.
What a delightful experience it was, they all thought. The skiffs were models of beauty and grace, and the seats the boys occupied were cane chairs from which the legs had been cut, and were also provided with cushions. Bob was seated in the stern and Jock in the bow, with Ethan between them, and in the other boat a similar arrangement had been made.
As soon as he perceived that they were ready, Ethan grasped the oars, and with steady strokes began to row out into the river. The water over which they passed was clear and beautiful. Scarcely a breeze ruffled the surface, and as the light skiff darted ahead, it almost seemed as if it required no effort to send it forward.
“I don’t know but ye might as well bait up,” said Ethan, when they had gone a few hundred yards from the camp. “I don’t s’pose ye’ll catch anything here, but there’s no harm in tryin’. It’s about time for the muscalonge to begin to run, an’ who knows but ye might strike one?”
Ethan rested on his oars, and taking first one of the lines and then the other, attached a live minnow to each of the hooks, and threw them overboard.
“Neow, let out about a hundred an’ twenty-five or fifty feet,” he said, “an’ we’ll troll till we get where we’re goin’ first.”