CHARLEY was going fishing and he took great pride in the quantity of squirming bait he carried in the tin box.
He was quite a small boy, only eight years old, but country boys learn to take care of themselves sooner than city children.
When he reached the little stream where he meant to fish, he found some one before him. It was a stranger whom Charley had seen once or twice at a neighbor's, where he was boarding during the summer.
The old mill was the best place in miles for fish, and Charley wished that the city boarder had chosen some other spot in which to read his book.
He gave a shy, not very cordial reply to the stranger's pleasant "Good morning!" and began to arrange his line. In a few minutes one of the largest earthworms was wriggling in the water at the end of Charley's hook, and he himself was sprawled out upon the ground at the end of a long beam projecting from the mill intently regarding the water.
"No luck, my boy?" asked the stranger, watching Charley work with the struggling worm that was as hard to get off the hook as it had been to put on.
"No, sir," replied the little boy. "The fishes don't seem to bite."
"Not hungry to-day, eh?" said the stranger. "I should think that would be a good thing for the worms."
Charley opened his eyes. It had never occurred to him to consider the worms in the matter. They were to him nothing but ugly, stupid things, which, his father said, injured the roots of plants.
"Don't you think the worms are as fond of their life as you are of yours?" went on Charley's new friend. "In their little underground earth houses they are very comfortable and happy."