“I’ll catch a fish!” cried Trouble, as he heard the news that he was to join the party. “I’ll put a peanut on my hook and I’ll catch a nellifunt fish.”
“Oh, all you think of is elephants!” laughed Janet, giving her little brother a hug. “But, Ted,” she asked, “do you really think you can catch a fish?”
“Sure, I can!” he said positively. “If we’re going down to the seashore we’ll fish there, so we’d better practice here. Once I caught a fish in the brook.”
This was true. Teddy had managed to trade off an old, broken knife to Tom Taylor in exchange for a rusty fish hook and a tangle of line. Ted untangled the line, fastened it to a pole he cut from the lilac bush, dug up a worm, baited his hook and caught a little sunfish. Ever since then, whenever other play failed, Ted announced that he was going fishing. But, up to this time, he had never caught another thing.
However, he never gave up hope, nor did Janet, for she, too, wanted to feel the thrill of a nibble on her hook. Ted, meanwhile, had traded off a battered top for another rusty hook and tangle of line to Harry Kent, and this second line he gave to Janet.
So they each had a pole and line, though the hooks were more rusty than at first. They were not very sharp, either, for which Mrs. Martin was glad, for she did not wish the Curlytops to get a hook caught in their hands. However, she said little, for she knew that the best way to make children careful is to let them do some things for themselves, after warning them how to look out for danger.
So, a little later, the Curlytops and Trouble were on their way to the brook which ran not far from the house. It was a pretty stream of water, not very wide and not very deep, running now through a clump of willow trees and again through bright, green meadows where cows cropped the grass and drank from the pools.
Ted and Janet had real poles, lines and hooks, but all Trouble was allowed to carry was a bent pin dangling on the end of a bit of cord tied to a stick. However, this was all he wanted.
Ted had dug himself some worms. Janet, who could not bear to put the wiggling things on her hook, had begged from Norah some scraps of meat from the ice box.
“The fish will bite on them just the same as on worms,” said Janet.