“Yes,” replied Tillie, “this old bay changes very little. I climbed up on Gull Rock to steal a gull’s eggs when I was three. And there it stands still. And still the gulls lay their eggs there. Only difference is, I have learned how foolish it is to steal their eggs.”
She baited her hook with a large minnow, drew out her line until thirty feet of it hung loosely coiled in her left hand; then with a deft toss landed the minnow thirty feet from the boat.
“There,” she sighed, “right over there.”
Florence was obliged to satisfy herself with a shorter cast.
“Do you know,” said Tillie, and the sound of her voice glided along like the air of some old song, “this has been my fishing hole ever since I was old enough to paddle the first little tub of a boat I ever owned? But it’s never lost its mystery, this hole hasn’t.
“There have been times when I thought I knew all about it. I’ve skated over it in winter when the ice was like glass. I could see every stone, every stick and log at the bottom. I peered in between every little forest of pikeweed and said, ‘Nope, there’s nothing there.’
“There have been times in summer when the surface of the water was smooth as a looking-glass. Then I peeked around in every little corner down there in the depths of it, and I said, ‘Ah, ha! At last I have you! I know all about you. You’re only a hole full of water with a sandy bottom and a shelving bank. You’re full of weeds and other common things.’
“Just about then the sun goes under a cloud. A little breeze ripples the water. I can’t see a thing. I wait. The rain comes pattering down. I put a shiny minnow or a dark old crawdad on my hook and throw it far out over the edge of the old fishing hole. Pretty soon the line starts stealing away. My reel goes round and round, silent as a whisper. Then of a sudden I jerk. I begin reeling in. A beautiful thing all green and gold leaps from the water. But I have him still.
“‘Ah!’ I cry. ‘A black bass. Where did he come from? The old fishing hole, to be sure.’ And right away that old pool with its mysterious blue-green top of rippled, spattered water is as full of mystery as it ever was.”
“Isn’t it wonderful to have such a fishing hole!” Florence enthused.