Bobby was just as much fun as any boy in Clinton; Fred knew that. Yet Bobby was forever "seeing consequences." He kept them both out of trouble very often by seeing ahead. Whereas Fred, left to himself, never would stop to think at all!
They had come two miles and a half. Where were there ever two boys who could walk as far as that without "walking up an appetite"?
"My goodness me, Fred!" exclaimed Bobby, as they came to the clear-water creek in which the pebbles and sand were plainly visible on the bottom. "My goodness me, Fred! aren't you dreadfully hungry?"
"I could eat the label off this tomato can—just like a goat!" declared Fred, shaking the can which held the fishworms before his chum's face and eyes.
"Then let's eat before we bait a hook," suggested Bobby. "I don't care if Meena does have the toothache. She makes de-lic-ious sandwiches."
"Scubbity-yow! I should say she did," agreed Fred, sitting down cross-legged on the grass under a spreading oak that here broke the hedge of willows bordering the stream.
The boys soon had their mouths full. It was not yet noon, but the sun was high in the heavens, and it twinkled down at them between the interlacing leaves and twigs of the oak. A little breeze played with the blades of grass. A thrush sang his heart out, swinging on a cane across the stream. A locust whirred like a policeman's rattle in a tall poplar a little way down the creek. In the distance a crow cawed lazily as he winged his way across a field, early plowed for grain.
"This is a fine place," said Bobby. "I just love the country."
"This is the way it is at Rockledge," declared Fred, proudly.
"How do you know? You've never been there."