ade, though, and that was something."

Just then he was suddenly embarrassed. Mrs. Ogden had gone through the
house and out at the back door, and Aunt Melinda had followed her, and
so had the girls. Molly had suddenly gone up-stairs to her own room.
Aunt Melinda had taken everything off the kitchen stove and put
everything back again, and here now was Mrs. Ogden back again, hugging
her son.

"Jack," she said, "don't you ever, ever, do such a thing again. You
might ha' been knocked into slivers!"

Molly had gone up the back stairs only to come down the front way, and
she was now a little behind them.

"Mother!" she exclaimed, as if her pent-up admiration for her brother
was exploding, "you ought to have seen him jump in, and you ought to
have seen that wagon go around the corner!"

"Jack," broke in the half-choked voice of Aunt Melinda from the kitchen
doorway, "come and eat something. I felt as if I knew you were killed,
sure. If you haven't earned your dinner, nobody has."

"Why, I know how to drive," said Jack. "I wasn't afraid of 'em after I
got hold of the reins."

He seemed even in a hurry to get through his dinner, and some minutes
later he was out in the garden, digging for bait. The rest of the
family remained at the table longer than usual, especially Bob and Jim;
but, for some reason known to herself, Mary did not say a word about
her meeting with Miss Glidden. Perhaps the miller's gray team had run
away with all her interest in that, but she did not even tell how
carefully Miss Glidden had inquired after the family.

"There goes Jack," she said at last, and they all turned to look.

He did not say anything as he passed the kitchen door, but he had his
long cane fishing-pole over his shoulder. It had a line wound around
it, ready for use. He went out of the gate and down the road toward
the bridge, and gave only a glance across at the shop.

"I didn't get many worms," he said to himself, at the bridge, "but I
can dig some more if the fish bite. Sometimes they do, and sometimes
they don't."

Over the bridge he went, and up a wagon track on the opposite bank, but
he paused for one moment, in the very middle of the bridge, to look up
stream.

"There's just enough water to run the mill," he said. "There isn't any
coming over the dam. The pond's even full, though, and it may be a
good day for fish. I wish I was in the city!"

CHAPTER II.

THE FISH WERE THERE.

Saturday aftern