Paul."

"Mother says you must go to school, and I think you had better be
there."

"Who will steer the boat while you skin the fish?" demanded John, who
had a proper idea of the value of his services, and was not at all
pleased at the thought of having them undervalued.

"I shall try to get along some way without you. I should like to have
you go, first rate, John; but I don't think you ought to stay out of
school. You will have a vacation next week, and you may go every day
then, if you want to."

"You ought to take me with you, Paul," continued John, resorting to the
persuasive, now that the argumentative had failed.

"I tell you I should like to have you go with me, if it were not for
your school."

John exhausted his store of arguments and persuasions without effect,
and then fled to his room to cry over his defeat. Paul sympathized with
his brother in his disappointment, but as the head of the family, he
could not, on principle, yield the point. Taking his jug of water and
his lunch, he left the house and hastened to the beach. The wind was
light, as on the preceding day, and it took him nearly two hours to run
down to Rock Island, for the old boat was a very heavy sailer even under
the most favorable circumstances.

Paul did not feel quite so nervous as on the day before, for he was so
confident of success that he did not feel uneasy even when he did not
get a bite for quarter of an hour. The perch were accommodating in the
main, and did not disappoint him, for at twelve o'clock--as he judged it
to be by the height of the tide--he had seven dozen in the boat, and
they were still biting as greedily as when he first commenced. He had
two lines on board, and he tried the experiment of using them both at
the same time, though without much success; for perch are fastidious,
and require a great deal of attention. While he was pulling in a fish
upon one line, the sly rogues in the brine stole his bait from the
other, and he came to the conclusion it was not best to have too many
irons in the fire at once.

Paul did not like to abandon the field while it was yielding such a rich
harvest; but he was a prudent fisherman, and not disposed to run any
risks. The tide would turn in less than two hours, and he knew it would
be impossible to run up to Bayville against both wind and tide. The old
boat was not equal to any such emergency, and he reluctantly wound up
his line and made sail for home.

The seven dozen per