“Ah, ha!” exclaimed the old fisherman. “I rather thought I would catch something this time. This is better than a fish,” and making a low bow he handed the baby’s sock to the baby’s mamma.
“Oh, where did you get it?” she asked.
“I fished it up out of the baby’s carriage,” said the old fisherman, with a jolly laugh. “Perhaps I can catch something else if I try.”
“I wish you would,” said the lady. “I have been looking all over for my baby’s pink socks, and I couldn’t find them. I never thought to look in the carriage.”
“Perhaps I can fish up the other one,” said the old fisherman, and then he sat down on the piano stool, and began dangling his hook and line in the baby carriage again, while the baby drank milk from the bottle, and the Trippertrot children and the lady looked at the fisherman. I forgot to tell you that on the end of the fisherman’s line was a hammock-hook. It wasn’t very sharp, and it couldn’t hurt any one, not even a baby’s pink sock, you see.
“There, I think I have something!” cried the fisherman at last, as he pulled up his line again. “The other sock!” he exclaimed, and there, surely enough, dangling from the hammock-hook, was the second pink sock.
“Oh, how very kind of you!” cried the lady. “I wish you would always stay here, and fish for the things that are lost. The baby loses so many things, and then there’s the little dog—he hides things.”
“Oh, we have a dog!” cried Mary.
“His name is Fido!” said Tommy.
“And we have a cat named Ivy Vine,” added Johnny.