"Well, well!" exclaimed Mr. Bunker, as he took this second one off the hook. "You boys are beating me all to pieces. I'll have to watch out what I'm doing!"
"Why don't you pull up your line. Daddy, and see what you've got on your hook?" asked Laddie.
"I believe I will," his father answered. "Here we go! Let's see what I have!"
Up came his line, and the pole bent like a bow, because something heavy was on the hook.
"Oh, daddy's got a big one! Daddy's got a terrible one!" cried Laddie.
"It's bigger than both our fishes put together," added Russ.
"I certainly have got something," said Mr. Bunker, as he kept on lifting his pole up. "But it doesn't act like a fish. It doesn't swim around and try to get off."
Something long and black was lifted out of the water. At first the two little boys thought it was a very big fish, but when Mr. Bunker saw it he laughed and cried:
"Well, look at my luck! It's only an old rubber boot!"
And so it was. His hook had caught on a rubber boot at the bottom of the lake and he had pulled that up, thinking it was a fish.