ly fish with spots of red on their
sides, swimming slowly along, all together, circling around the foot of
the pond as if they were exploring. Oh, how pretty they looked as they
turned; for they kept together and then swam off up the pond again.

"Kate whispered that they were trout. 'But I never saw so many,' she
said, 'nor such large ones before; and I never heard Tom nor any of the
boys say there were trout here.'

"We thought they had gone perhaps and would not come again," Ellen
continued. "But in about ten minutes they all came circling back down
the other shore of the pond, keeping in a school together just as when
we first saw them. We sat and watched them till they came around the
third time, and then Kate said, 'One of us must run home and tell the
boys to come with their hooks.' I said that I would go, and I've run
almost all the way. Now hurry. I'll rest here till you come. Then we
will scamper back."

In a corner of the vegetable garden where I had dug horse-radish a few
mornings before, I had seen some exceedingly plethoric angle-worms; and
after running to the wood-house and securing a fish-hook, pole and line
which Addison kept there, ready strung, I seized an old tin quart, and
going to the garden, with a few deep thrusts of the shovel, turned out a
score or two of those great pale-purple, wriggling worms. These I as
hastily hustled into the quart along with a pint or more of the dirt,
then snatching up my pole, ran down to the field where Nell was waiting
for me, seated on one of my lately piled stone heaps.

"Come, hurry now," said she; and away we went over the wall and through
brakes and bushes, down into the swamp, and then along the old road in
the woods, till we came out at the high conical knoll, covered with
sapling pines, to the left of the old mill dam. There we espied Kate and
Theodora sitting quietly on a log.

"Oh, we thought that you never would come," said the former in a low
tone. "But creep along here. Don't make a noise. They've come around six
times, Ellen, since you went away. I never saw trout do so before. I
believe they are lost and are exploring, or looking for some way out of
this pond. I guess they came down out of North Pond along the Foy Brook;
for they are too large for brook trout. They will be back here in a few
minutes, again. Now bait the hook and drop in before they come back.
Then sit still, and when they come, just move the bait a little and I
think you'll get a