All was animation now. The boys sat bolt-upright. Charley laughed. "Moved and seconded that we, the stirring youth of Brayton, celebrate to-morrow by going fishing. All who favor this will please say—"
"Ay!"
"The motion is unanimously carried," said Charley, shaking back his hair.
I think it was myself. So would you if you could have heard that roaring assent. There was no half-way work with the Brayton boys. They were all on hand the next morning, with their lunch baskets, not exactly before daylight, but sufficiently early; and they could not resist the temptation to give several prolonged whoops as they shoved the old scow out from shore.
"That'll let 'em know we're 'round," laughed Charley Stevens. "There, boys, back up. I've left my pails."
"What pails?"
"Why," said Charley, "I promised to save some of the smallest fish, if they weren't hooked too much, for Laurie's aquarium, and I brought along a couple of pails to keep 'em alive in. There they are on the bank. Backwater."
"Nonsense!"
But Charley was firm; and Jed and Bud and Vet, who were taking the first turn at the paddles, pulled a rod or two back to the shore, not without a little grumbling, and brought away the pails. Afterward they all had very good reason to remember and be thankful for this. Then they pulled steadily away up the river, through the light fog which the rays of the morning sun had not yet scattered, trolling their lines, and catching a few fish by the way.
"I would have brought a frying-pan," said Dean Marden, pulling in a speckled trout, "but father said 'twouldn't do to make a fire this weather. Everything's dry as tinder."