.

"And here's yours, Puss," John said. "Drop it in."

Soon there were five rods extended over the water, and five corks were
floating which might have told of robbed molasses-jugs and vinegar-jugs,
and five young people were laughing, and talking nonsense by the---- How
is nonsense estimated? Everybody kept asking everybody else if he had
had a bite, and everybody was guilty of giving false alarms. As for
Elsie, she shrieked out, "A bite!" at every provocation,--whenever the
current bore unusually against her line, when the floating hook dragged
bottom or encountered a twig.

"Jupiter!" said John, growing impatient at the idle drifting of his
cork. "I can't stand this, Elsie. You girls stop talking. You chatter
like magpies; you scare the fish. Girls oughtn't ever to go fishing."

Jacob Isaac snickered, and remarked _sotto voce_: "He talks hisse'f maw
'n the res' of the ladies."

Elsie did not heed John's attack. Her eye was riveted on her bobbing
cork; her cheeks were glowing with excitement; her heart was beating
wildly. There was a pulling at her line.

"Keep quiet!" she called. "I've got a bite."

"You would have, if I could get at your arm," said John, who didn't
believe she had a bite.

"I have, truly," she said, excitedly. "Look!"

All came tramping, crowding about her.

"I feel him pull," she said, eagerly.

"Well, get him out," said Luke.

"Shall I pull him or jerk him?" Elsie was nearly breathless.

"If I knew about his size, I could tell you," said Luke. "If he's big,
give him a dignified pull; if he's a little chap, jerk him; no business
to be little."

"Oh! I'm afraid it will hurt him," said Puss.

"Out with him!" said Luke.

"I'm afraid the line will break," said Elsie, all in a quiver.

"No, it wont," said John.

"The rod might snap," said Elsie.

"Here, let me take the rod," John proposed.

"No, no; I'm going to catch the fish myself," Elsie said, in vehement
protest.

"Then jerk, sharp and strong," her brother said.

Elsie made ready; steadied her eager brain; planted her feet firmly;
braced her muscles by her will; and then, with a shriek, threw up her
rod, "as high as the sky," Puss said. There was a fleeting vision of a
dripping white-bellied fish going skyward; and then a faint thud was
heard.

"She's thrown it a half-mile, or less, in the bushes," said Luke.

"And there's her hook in the top of that tree," said John. "What gumps
girls are when you take them out-of-d