"Ask Frank," suggested Dave with pretended weariness; "he's got second sight."
"Don't need second sight to see that worm crawling up your pants leg. We going to stand here all day! I move we get a hike on down to the boat. Maybe we can hitch on behind Steve Porter's launch—he's going up past Dead Tree Point—and that'll save us the long pull through the slough."
The boys picked up the great load of luggage, which was not so big when divided among four boys, and hustled out of the Ring yard and down the dusty road. They were four of a size; that is, Tod Fulton was tall and somewhat flattened out, while Frank Ellery was more or less all in a bunch, as Jerry said, who was himself sturdily put together. Dave Thomas was neither as tall as Tod nor as stocky as Frank; He looked undersized, in fact. But his "red hair and readier tongue," his friends declared, more than made up for any lack of size. At any rate, no one ever offered a second time to carry the heaviest end of the load.
Now, as they walked along through the back streets of Watertown, rightly named as it was in the midst of lakes, creeks and rivers, they began a discussion that never grew old with them. Tod began it.
"We've got plenty of worms, for once."
"Good!" cried Dave. "I've thought of a dandy scheme, but it'd take a pile of bait."
"What's that?" asked Jerry, suspecting mischief.
"You know, you can stretch out a worm to about three inches. Tie about a hundred together—allow an inch apiece for the knot—that would make two hundred inches, or say seventeen feet. Put the back end of the line about a foot up on the bank and the other end out in the water. Along comes a carp—the only fish that eats worms—and starts eating. He gets so excited following up his links of worm-weenies, that he doesn't notice he's up on shore, when suddenly Tod Fulton, mighty fisherman, grabs him by the tail and flips him——"
"Yes—where does he flip him?" Tod had dropped his share of the luggage and now had Dave by the back of the neck.
"Back into the water and makes him eat another string of worms as punishment for being a carp."