“Seems a shame,” said Florence, as she helped scoop the minnows into one of the waiting buckets. “So many tiny lives snuffed out just for fun.”
“They wouldn’t ever get much bigger,” said Tillie philosophically. “Pop says they’re just naturally little fellows like some of the rest of us.”
She set the bucket down. “We’ll leave this one right here. We’ll take the other one down a piece. We’ll get one more haul. That’ll be enough. Then Turkey’ll be here.”
Once more they dragged the net over the sandy shallows, circled, closed in, then lifted a multitude of little fishes from the water.
The last wriggling minnow had gone flapping into the bucket, when suddenly Tillie straightened up with first a puzzled, then an angry look on her face.
Seizing a heavy driftwood pole that lay upon the beach, she dashed away over the sand.
To her horror, Florence saw that the strange bear, who had undoubtedly followed them, had just thrust his head into their other bucket of minnows.
“Bears like fish,” she thought. “Tillie will be killed!
“Tillie! Tillie!” she screamed. “Don’t! Don’t!”
She may as well have shouted at the wind. Tillie’s stout arms brought the club down twice on the bear’s head. Thwack! Thwack!