Three times the floater went under the water.
Then Marmaduke threw his pole back quickly and the hook came out of the water. On it something wriggled. The thing fell plop into Hepzebiah's lap. She screamed while it flopped there. It was a little bigger than the Toyman's hand and round and flat and shiny red and gold. No, it was not a goldfish. It was a sunfish.
After the Toyman had taken the sunfish from the hook and put another worm on it, he threw the line back into the water.
Then all the three children and the two dogs sat watching the little rings in the water around the floaters. Sometimes farther out they saw larger rings, and a fish feeling pretty happy, because of the cool September weather, would jump out of the water and turn a somersault through the air.
Then all of a sudden the blue and yellow floater went under and little Hepzebiah caught a sunfish, too.
Jehosophat felt disappointed because he was the oldest and hadn't caught any fish at all. But the afternoon was not gone when he felt a big tug at his line. It took him a long time to pull that fish in. When the hook came out of the water a long wriggly thing was on it.
"Oo, oo, it's a snake," screamed little Hepzebiah.
"No, it's only an eel," said the Toyman, "he won't hurt you."
But he had to take it off Jehosophat's hook himself, the eel was so slippery and wriggled so. Before the sun went down, the children had each caught two fish. There were three sunfish, two perch, and the wriggly eel.
The Toyman cleaned them all. And Mother fried them with butter and flour in a pan. It was a good supper they had that night, for they had caught it themselves. When supper was over three little heads were nodding and soon the three happy children were taking a little sail way on into Dreamland. That is a beautiful place where you would like to go too. So you had better follow them quickly. Perhaps you can catch up with them. Good-night.