"Oh, never mind," she urged. "I'll show you just where I saw him. I just as lieve you'd catch him."
The invitation was too much for Tim, and he started off across the fields with Bess Thornton.
"That fish'll never bite," he said, as they went along; "I've tried him with worms and grasshoppers and wasps and crickets, and that fly made of feathers that Jack gave me. He knows a whole lot, that old trout. Guess he's a school-teacher, he knows so much."
"I'm going to catch him, anyway, if you don't," said the girl. "I know what I'm going to do."
"What's that?" asked Tim, in a tone that indicated he had no great faith in her success.
"I'm going to bait up two hooks with a whole lot of worms, and I'm not going to put 'em into the pool till after it gets dark," replied Bess Thornton. "And I'm going to let 'em stay there all night. He's such a sly old thing you can't get near the bank without he knows it. Then when it gets morning, and he's hungry, perhaps he'll see all those worms and just go and catch himself."
"Yes, and get away again long before you get back," said Tim Reardon. "He'll just take and tangle that line all up around the rocks and sticks at the bottom, and break it."
"I'm going to try, anyway," she insisted. They turned in at the path leading to the girl's home presently, and she went in with the pickerel.
"I'll dig some bait for you while you're gone," called Tim.
"I can do it," she said.