"And here's yours, Puss," John said. "Drop it in."
Soon there were five rods extended over the water, and five corks were floating which might have told of robbed molasses-jugs and vinegar-jugs, and five young people were laughing, and talking nonsense by the—— How is nonsense estimated? Everybody kept asking everybody else if he had had a bite, and everybody was guilty of giving false alarms. As for Elsie, she shrieked out, "A bite!" at every provocation,—whenever the current bore unusually against her line, when the floating hook dragged bottom or encountered a twig.
"Jupiter!" said John, growing impatient at the idle drifting of his cork. "I can't stand this, Elsie. You girls stop talking. You chatter like magpies; you scare the fish. Girls oughtn't ever to go fishing."
Jacob Isaac snickered, and remarked sotto voce: "He talks hisse'f maw 'n the res' of the ladies."
Elsie did not heed John's attack. Her eye was riveted on her bobbing cork; her cheeks were glowing with excitement; her heart was beating wildly. There was a pulling at her line.
"Keep quiet!" she called. "I've got a bite."
"You would have, if I could get at your arm," said John, who didn't believe she had a bite.
"I have, truly," she said, excitedly. "Look!"
All came tramping, crowding about her.
"I feel him pull," she said, eagerly.