From her hiding-place she saw Farmer Ellison rush suddenly from cover upon the very place where she had sat, fishing. She saw him run, furiously, hither and thither, beating the underbrush with his cane, shaking the stick wrathfully. His face showed the keenest disappointment and chagrin.
Up and down the shore of the pool he travelled, searching every clump that might afford shelter.
"Well," he exclaimed finally, "I must be going wrong, somehow. First it's the mill I hear, when it isn't grinding, and now I see somebody fishing when there isn't anybody. I'll go and take some of them burdock bitters. Guess my liver must be out of order."
Farmer Ellison, shaking his head dubiously, and casting a backward glance now and then, strode up the hill, looking puzzled and wrathful.
When he was a safe distance out of the way, a little figure, dripping wet, scrambled in across the bog on the other side, and stole up through the fields to the old tumble-down house.
"What's that you're cooking, child?" called out a voice, some time later, as the girl stood by the kitchen stove.
"M-m-m-m gran', it's something awful good. Do you smell 'em?" replied the child, gazing proudly into the fry-pan, wherein the three fat trout sizzled. "Well, I caught 'em, myself."
"I do declare!" exclaimed Grannie Thornton. "I didn't know the trout would bite now anywhere but in Jim Ellison's pool."
The girl made no reply.
"You like 'em, don't you, gran'?" she said, gleefully, some moments later, as she stood watching the old woman eat her breakfast with a relish. Grannie Thornton had eaten one trout, and was beginning on the half of another.