THE FISHING PARTY
“I very much wish I could go,” said David to himself, and he sighed
clear down in his little heart. Then he crept out from behind the
wood-pile, his favorite place when he had anything to think out, and
started to run as fast as he could down the lane into the high road.
“Because if I don’t hurry, Joel will ask Mamsie to let me go, too, and
I promised Mr. Atkins I’d help him keep store to-day.
“And besides,” as he panted on, “I should lose the ten cents he’d give
me for Mamsie.”
So he was all hot and tired out when he pushed open the door to the
store. Mr. Atkins was behind the counter.
“You needn’t to ’a’ hurried so,” he said; “you’re all het up, Davie.
Now set down an’ rest.”
David, without much breath to spare, said nothing, as he climbed up on
the sugar-barrel, his usual place when there was a chance to sit down,
and folded his hands to wait for orders.
But before these came, the door was swung violently open, and in rushed
Joel.
“What made you run off?” he demanded. “Mamsie says you can go,” and he
plunged across the store to David on his barrel.
“Hulloa!” cried Mr. Atkins, “hain’t you no time to say good morning?
Your ma wouldn’t like you to lose your manners.”
Joel, very much ashamed, deserted David and ran over to the counter.
“I’m sorry,” he began, his face very red, and his black stubby head
bobbing. “I didn’t mean to forget.”
“All right,” said Mr. Atkins. “Well now, what’s the rumpus, pray tell,
Joel?”
“He can go,” said Joel, pounding one fist on the counter; “Mamsie says
he can.”
“Who, Davie?”
“Yes, he can go. Mamsie says so, if you don’t want him.” Then Joel,
fearing that one fist was not enough to emphasize his statement, now
began with the other till the pieces of paper on the counter were all
in a flutter.
“Hold on there, Joe,” said Mr. Atkins, “or, first you know, you’ll have
us all a-blowing out the door.”
Joel stopped pounding and looked anxiously over at the store door,
while Mr. Atkins laughed and leaned over the counter.
“What’s it all about--where do you want David to go?” he asked.
David, who up to this time had sat quite still, now hopped from his
barrel and ran over to Joel. “Oh, I can’t go,” he cried. “I’m going to
stay here and help Mr. Atkins.”
Joel whirled around and seized Davie’s calico blouse. “You can,” he
howled, “you can, Davie--”
“Where do you want David to go?” demanded the storekeeper, between
Joel’s howls and David’s remonstrances.
“Fishing,” said Joel. Then he turned a face of anguish. “Do make him,”
he cried, still hanging to David’s blouse.
“Don’t you want to go, Davie?” asked Mr. Atkins with a keen glance at
him.
David stopped crying. “Oh, I can’t go,” and hung his head. He wanted
dreadfully to say, “No, sir,” but Mamsie had always told them all to
speak the truth. So he said, “Yes,” in a very low voice.
“Then I guess you better go,” said the storekeeper.
“Oh, no, no,” cried Davie, springing away from Joel. “I can’t go. Don’t
make me, Mr. Atkins.”
“You mean because you promised to help me to-day, David?” said Mr.
Atkins.
“Yes, sir--and do make Joel stop.” David was now in such a panic that
Mr. Atkins came out from behind the counter. “See here, Joe,” and he
seized his arm, “you get up on Davie’s barrel an’ set still if you
can.” And before Joel quite knew how, there he was, and the storekeeper
and Davie were settling matters by themselves.
“You see,” Mr. Atkins was saying, “it’s quite lucky that I want to set
about some things to-day in the store where you can’t help me, Davie.”
“Can’t I, Mr. Atkins?” cried David.
“No; fact is, I’d ruther you’d come to-morrow, ’nstead o’ to-day,” said
Mr. Atkins decidedly. “You can go fishing as well as not. Hop down,
Joe.”
No need to tell Joel. He was off the sugar-barrel and down by David’s
side in a twinkling.
“Got any fish-pole, Davie?” asked the storekeeper. He was back by the
counter now, and rummaging on his shelves.
Before David could answer, Joel piped, “Yes--we made ’em.”
“An’ fish-hooks?” Mr. Atkins went on, bending over to get a small box
on the lower shelf.
“Yes, yes,” said Joel. “Mrs. Blodgett gave us some big pins. Come on,
Dave.”
“Well now, David,” said the storekeeper, turning around, a fish-pole in
one hand and two or three fish-hooks in the other. “Here’s somethin’
for you. You’ve ben a good boy an’ helped me fust-rate.”
Joel rushed over to the counter, his black eyes sparkling. David came
up slowly.
“Hold your hands, Davie,” said Mr. Atkins. “Now, says I, I guess you
can ketch some fish. Hurry up, my boy,” as David hung back.
“Can’t--can’t Joel have ’em?” asked Davie.
“No--no, these are for you. You’ve ben helpin’ me real good in th’
store.” Mr. Atkins dangled the fish-pole before the boys. Joel held his
breath and crowded closely up.
“Joel could catch more fish with ’em,” said Davie, the color dropping
out from his little face.
“Well, maybe,” said the storekeeper with a keen glance at Joel, who
twisted his brown hands tightly together, trying not to say how very
much he wanted that fish-pole and those splendid hooks. “There, hold
out your hands, Davie.”
David put forth a pair of hands that shook so that the fish-hooks
tumbled out of them, and down to the floor.
“I’ll pick ’em up,” cried Joel, scrambling after them. He held them a
minute, trying the sharp points on his small thumb, and turning them
over and over admiringly.
“Now it just comes to me, I do verily b’lieve I’ve got another
fish-pole like David’s,” said Mr. Atkins reflectively, and turning back
to his shelves.
“Is it for me? Oh, is it, Mr. Atkins?” screamed Joel, and he tumbled
the fish-hooks into David’s hand and scrambled up on the counter.
“I wouldn’t wonder,” said the storekeeper over his shoulder.
“Oh--oh!” Joel hopped up and down on the counter, his black eyes
shining in anticipation. “Dave, he’s going to give me one, too--he
is--he is!” he screamed.
David, both hands full of his treasures, gave a long blissful sigh,
then hugged them to his breast, and he laughed aloud in glee.
“Mercy sakes! Get down off th’ counter, Joe,” said Mr. Atkins. “There,”
as Joel slid to the floor, putting a fish-pole, just the size for a boy
to swing, into the eager brown hand, “an’ there’s th’ hooks. Be careful
not to git ’em stuck into you.”
“They’re goin’ to be stuck into the fishes,” cried Joel, seizing
fish-pole and hooks. “I’m going to catch lots and lots. Come on, Dave,”
beginning to march to the door in great excitement. Then he remembered
and ran back. “I thank you,” he said, then dashed out.
“Now, run along, Davie,” said Mr. Atkins, “or Joe will be down to th’
brook an’ catch every single fish before you have a chance to get up
with him.”
David stood quite still clasping his treasures, as he tried to speak.
His blue eyes shone, but he couldn’t say a word.
“I know,” said the storekeeper kindly. “Now you run along. I shall need
you to-morrow, for you are a great help to me, David.”
David’s happy feet scarcely seemed to touch the ground, as he hurried
after Joel, almost catching up with him turning into the gateway of the
little brown house.
It was some time before the boys could settle down from the excitement
of showing their treasures, to the work of digging the worms. Polly
came out and helped them with an old iron spoon. She couldn’t work
fast and her hand trembled, all her healthy young body longing for the
fun of the expedition. But there was no hope that she could go--for
she must help Mamsie to finish the coats brought home from the store
the day before. And there were the Henderson boys waiting, Mrs. Pepper
being willing, since the parson’s sons could go, to let Joel and David
have this pleasure.
At last they were off--all four of them--the worms wriggling about in
an old tin can that Joel shook up and down at every step.
Polly hung over the old gate with Phronsie by her side, to watch them
off.
“Oh, I wish I could ever have any fun,” she said to herself. “The
little path in the woods is just lovely, and the dear brook! O
dear!--why can’t I ever go anywhere!”
“Polly,” asked Phronsie, giving a little twitch to Polly’s blue checked
apron, “what is the matter?”
“I’m not crying,” said Polly, turning her face away.
“But your mouth looks like crying,” said Phronsie, peering around
anxiously at her.
“Oh, never mind, Pet,” said Polly. Then she drew a long breath. “Let me
alone, Phronsie. I’m bad this morning.”
“You’re never bad,” said Phronsie decidedly. “Do let me see your face,
Polly,” she begged.
Polly swallowed hard. “I’ll tell you, Phronsie, what let’s do--we’ll
race down the road to the corner and then turn and race back. Catch me
now.”
Phronsie, all intent now on the race, forgot about Polly’s face. When
they came back and ran into the little brown house, Polly’s cheeks were
as rosy as ever, and Phronsie was laughing gleefully.
When the “lovely little path in the woods” was reached, Joel dashed
ahead and Ezekiel at his heels.
“You’re so slow,” Joel said, looking back at Peletiah. So David had to
hold back his feet, longing for a run, to keep pace with the parson’s
eldest son.
The consequence was, as they came up to the deep pool in the silvery
little brook, Joel was fixing his best hook on the line hanging from
his new pole. Ezekiel, too lost in admiration to do anything to get his
own made ready, was hanging over him.
Peletiah sat down and calmly looked around. “My father says you mustn’t
splash the water when you fish,” he said, as Joel made frantic flings
with his fish-line on which a long worm made curves in the air.
“I can fish,” shouted Joel, standing on a big stone in the middle of
the pool. “See-- Come on, Dave!”
David, who never could bear to stick a worm on the hook, put his hand
into the tin can, then drew it back again. “Perhaps a fish will bite
without it,” he said to himself. Then he went farther down the pool and
behind some bushes, and cast in his line.
“Come here!” shouted Joel, from his big stone, and splashing the
silvery surface on all sides. “Come, Dave!”
“My father says you mustn’t splash the water when you fish,” said
Peletiah, beginning slowly to choose a worm from the tin can.
Joel turned a cold shoulder to the parson’s son and continued to beat
the water to right and to left. Ezekiel seeing there was more fun to
be gained than to stay with Peletiah, who was having difficulty with
his worm, stepped gingerly across the stepping-stones, holding his pole
carefully aloft.
“I’m coming,” he announced.
“No, no,” cried Joel crossly; “this is Dave’s place.”
“I’m coming,” announced Ezekiel pleasantly, as he picked his way along.
“You aren’t going to get on,” declared Joel, spreading his small legs
apart defiantly.
“I’m the minister’s son,” said Ezekiel, “and you must let me get on.”
“No, I sha’n’t,” said Joel. Yet he had an awful feeling down deep in
his heart that he ought to; but he stood his ground sturdily.
“And that stone is mine as much as it is yours,” said Ezekiel, drawing
near and balancing his pole with great care.
“No, it’s mine, I got it first.” Joel squared his shoulders, and gave a
swish to his line that sent his worm away off among the shining ripples.
Just then came a cry from David. “I’ve got a fish--I’ve got a fish!” in
a jubilant little voice.
Joel deserted his big stone and flew past Ezekiel on the
stepping-stones, who immediately in great satisfaction stepped on to
the coveted place.
“I’ll help you get him in, Dave,” cried Joel, plunging along the bushes
where Dave, with a very red face, was struggling to land a heavy
weight on his hook. “I’ll get him for you.”
Joel threw aside his fish-pole, the long worm still continuing his
exercise, and dashing up, laid his little brown hands next to David’s,
and together they pulled so hard that over backward they went, and the
fish-hook with an old tangled root hanging to it flew straight up in
the air.
“O dear!” exclaimed David in great mortification, as they picked
themselves up and began to untangle the root, “there wasn’t any fish at
all.”
“P’raps you had one, and he ate off the worm,” said Joel, seeing
David’s face.
David turned off to the bushes, leaving Joel to get the old piece of
root off. “I don’t need to tell him that I didn’t have a worm on,” he
said to himself, and his hands worked nervously.
“I ’most know a fish stole your worm,” Joel kept saying as his hands
were busy; “bad old fish!”
David’s cheeks got so hot that he came out of the shelter of the
bushes. Could he go home to Mamsie without telling Joel all about it?
Without stopping to think, he plunged up to Joel’s side. “I didn’t
stick a worm on.”
“Didn’t stick a worm on?” repeated Joel in amazement, dropping
fish-hook, tangle of root, and all.
“No,” said David in a miserable little voice. “I didn’t, Joel.” Then he
sat down on the grass, and hid his face.
“Hoh!” sniffed Joel, “you can’t fish--any more than--than--a girl.”
“Oh, Joel, I can,” burst out Davie, leaping to his feet. “I can,
Joel--and I will put on a worm,” but he shivered.
“You needn’t,” said Joel, turning back to the root-tangle; “I’ll put
’em all on for you,--I like to.”
“I’ve got one!” screamed Ezekiel.
Sure enough! There was the minister’s son having the greatest
difficulty in his excitement to keep his footing on the big stone,
swinging his line, at the end of which was a little speckled trout
shining in the sunshine.