"What kind of fish,—trout?"
"Yes, there's trout, but there's more bass and pickerel and perch. You're apt to be awfully bothered with pumpkin-seeds in summer."
Port was silent. He wanted to ask about the pumpkins, and how the seeds could bother a fellow when he was fishing for trout. After a minute or so, he uttered one word,—
"Pumpkin-seeds?"
"Crowds of 'em. They're the meanest kind of fish. Bite, bite, bite, and you keep pulling 'em in, all the while you want something bigger."
"Can't you eat 'em?"
"Yes, they're good to fry, but they're full of bones. Not enough of 'em."
"They won't bite in winter, will they?"
"Hope not. Tell you what, Port, we're in for the biggest kind of a time."
That was an exciting evening. Nobody seemed to want to go to bed, and the semicircle around the fireplace talked of hardly any thing else but fishing and hunting. Deacon Farnham himself came out with some stories aunt Judith said she hadn't heard him tell for more than a year. Porter and Susie had no stories to tell, but they could listen. The former went to bed at last, with a vague feeling that he would rather go to Mink Lake. It was a good while before he got to sleep, and even then he had a wonderful dream. He dreamed he was trying to pull a fish as large as a small whale through a sort of auger-hole in some ice. He pulled so hard, he woke himself up; but he could roll over and go to sleep soundly, now the fish was gone.