up just
like life. There were hooks on its head, and on its back, and its
belly, and its tail, so's that if a fish snapped at it anywhere it got
hooked."

"I should say so!" exclaimed Mary. "It's no fair way to fish, to use
more than one hook. You might just as well take a net and wade in and
seine out the fish as to take a lot of hooks and rake thim out."

"Well, who's going to take a lot of hooks and rake thim out?"

"I didn't say anybody was. I was just saying it wouldn't be fair to the
fish if they did."

"Course I wouldn't fish with no riggin' like that, when Dannie only has
one old hook. Whin we fish for the Bass, I won't use but one hook
either. All the same, I'm going to have some of those fancy baits. I'm
going to get Jim Skeels at the drug store to order thim for me. I know
just how you do," said Jimmy flourishing the rod. "You put on your bait
and quite a heavy sinker, and you wind it up to the ind of your rod,
and thin you stand up in your boat----"

"Stand up in your boat!"

"I wish you'd let me finish!--or on the bank, and you take this little
whipper-snapper, and you touch the spot on the reel that relases the
thrid, and you give the rod a little toss, aisy as throwin' away chips,
and off maybe fifty feet your bait hits the water, 'spat!' and 'snap!'
goes Mr. Bass, and 'stick!' goes the hook. See?"

"What I see is that if you want to fish that way in the Wabash, you'll
have to wait until the dredge goes through and they make a canal out of
it; for be the time you'd throwed fifty feet, and your fish had run
another fifty, there'd be just one hundred snags, and logs, and stumps
between you; one for every foot of the way. It must look pretty on deep
water, where it can be done right, but I bet anything that if you go to
fooling with that on our river, Dannie gets the Bass."

"Not much, Dannie don't 'gets the Bass,'" said Jimmy confidently. "Just
you come out here and let me show you how this works. Now you see, I
put me sinker on the ind of the thrid, no hook of course, for practice,
and I touch this little spring here, and give me little rod a whip and
away goes me bait, slick as grase. Mr. Bass is layin' in thim bass
weeds right out there, foreninst the pie-plant bed, and the bait
strikes the water at the idge, see! and 'snap,' he takes it and sails
off slow, to swally it at leisure. Here's where I don't pull a morsel.
Jist let him rin and swally, and whin me line is well out and he has me
bait