“Daddy!” said Sunny Boy after a long while.
Mr. Horton raised a warning finger.
“But Daddy?” this after Sunny Boy had waited a longer time.
“You’ll scare the fish,” Mr. Horton whispered. “What is it?”
“My foot prickles!”
Mr. Horton took his line and whispered to him to get up and run about.
Sunny Boy’s foot felt too funny for words, and at first he was sure it had dropped off while he had been sitting on it. He could not feel it at all. After stamping up and down a few minutes the funny feeling went away, and he came back to his father and took his line.
“Your foot was asleep,” said Mr. Horton in a low tone. “Don’t sit on it again. Feel a nibble?”
Sunny Boy drew his line up and looked at it. There was nothing at all on the pin.
“Percy Perch must have taken that cracker when you weren’t looking,” said Mr. Horton, putting another cracker on. “Now watch out that Tommy Trout doesn’t run off with this.”