and all my flowers will
bloom again. Goody for summer; it can't come too soon to suit me."

"Lord! I don't see what there is in any of those things," said Jimmy.
"I've got just one sign of spring that interests me. If you want to see
me caper, somebody mention to me the first rattle of the Kingfisher.
Whin he comes home, and house cleans in his tunnel in the embankment,
and takes possession of his stump in the river, the nixt day the Black
Bass locates in the deep water below the shoals. THIN you can count me
in. There is where business begins for Jimmy boy. I am going to have
that Bass this summer, if I don't plant an acre of corn."

"I bet you that's the truth!" said Mary, so quickly that both men
laughed.

"Ahem!" said Dannie. "Then I will have to do my plowing by a heidlicht,
so I can fish as much as ye do in the day time. I hereby make, enact,
and enforce a law that neither of us is to fish in the Bass hole when
the other is not there to fish also. That is the only fair way. I've as
much richt to him as ye have."

"Of course!" said Mary. "That is a fair way. Make that a rule, and kape
it. If you both fish at once, it's got to be a fair catch for the one
that lands it; but whoever catches it, _I_ shall ate it, so it don't
much matter to me."

"You ate it!" howled Jimnmy. "I guess not. Not a taste of that fish,
when he's teased me for years? He's as big as a whale. If Jonah had had
the good fortune of falling in the Wabash, and being swallowed by the
Black Bass, he could have ridden from Peru to Terre Haute, and suffered
no inconvanience makin' a landin'. Siven pounds he'll weigh by the
steelyard I'll wager you."

"Five, Jimmy, five," corrected Dannie.

"Siven!" shouted Jimmy. "Ain't I hooked him repeated? Ain't I seen him
broadside? I wonder if thim domn lines of mine have gone and rotted."

He left his supper, carrying his chair, and standing on it he began
rummaging the top shelf of the cupboard for his box of tackle. He
knocked a bottle from the shelf, but caught it in mid-air with a
dexterous sweep.

"Spirits are movin'," cried Jimmy, as he restored the camphor to its
place. He carried the box to the window, and became so deeply engrossed
in its contents that he did not notice when Dannie picked up his rat
bag and told him to come on and help skin their day's catch. Mary tried
to send him, and he was going in a minute, but the minute stretched and
stretched, and both of them were surprised when the do