But it was too late, for with a low, sullen roar the heavy rollers from the Albany night boat came tumbling in, upsetting and twisting the net, and carrying it on the rocks.
"There he goes!" cried one of the men, and sure enough the big fish had torn the net, and was free, and like a flash hundreds of shad followed through the hole he had made, so that scarcely fifty good fish were left in it to reward the fishermen's labors.
"Isn't it too bad?" said Joe to Scott, as he passed by to a bright drift-wood fire under the rocky headland, where the men were drying themselves. "I'm real sorry you lost them."
"It's fisherman's luck," replied Scott, quietly. "We'll hope for better next time."
"What kind of fish was it?" asked Ralph.
"I hardly know. I never saw one like it, or we would have known how to manage it better."
By the fire-light the remaining fish were soon sorted out, and each of our boys was given a fine fat shad for his share of the work; so although they lost their supper, they had a fine feast for Sunday morning's breakfast.
[PLANTING-TIME.]
"I've planted a paper of pins in a row;
I wonder when will my pin-trees grow?"
Cried darling Dora, with puzzled eyes,
At aunty's look of complete surprise.
"Planted a paper of pins, my dear?
They'll never come up, though you wait a year—
Yes, you may wait a year and a day,
And down in the ground your pins will stay.
"Roses and lilies and daisies white,
Blossom and flourish in dark and light;
But pins will rust in the planted row,
For out in the garden no pin-trees grow."