“Sure you’ll fish,” Daddy assured him. “Likely, you’ll catch one, though you never can tell. A good sportsman doesn’t growl even if he spends a whole day and doesn’t catch one fish. We’ll be good sports, shan’t we?”
“Yes,” agreed Sunny Boy. “But I would rather catch a fish.”
Daddy laughed and began to whistle.
“Do you know Jimmie?” said Sunny Boy, running to keep up with him. “Do you know Jimmie and Mr. Sites and Araminta and David and Raymond and Juddy and Fred and Sarah and Dorabelle? Do you, Daddy?”
“I went to school with a boy named Jaspar Sites,” Daddy stopped whistling to answer. “Guess he’s the same. Araminta helps Grandma—I know her, and Jimmie I’ve met before. But I must say the others haven’t the pleasure of my acquaintance—who is Dorabelle, may I ask?”
“They’re Araminta’s brothers and sisters,” explained Sunny Boy. “They live down the road. Let’s fish now, Daddy.”
“We will,” agreed Mr. Horton. “You’ve picked out a good place. Now first I’ll start you in, and then I’ll try my luck.”
He found a nice long branch for Sunny, and tied a fish-line to it. At the end of the line he fastened a bent pin with a bit of cracker on the point.
“There you are,” he told him. “Now you sit out here on the dead roots of this tree that hangs over the bank, and you dangle the cracker in the water and keep very, very still. And perhaps a little fish on his way to the grocery store for his mother will see the cracker and want a bite of lunch. Then you’ll catch him.”
Sunny Boy sat very still while Daddy baited a sharp thin hook with real bait and threw his line into the water, too. He sat down beside Sunny and together they waited.