ream a deep hole in the shade of some large trees.
Just above it the creek tumbled and foamed over a rocky bed. John said
to Luke: "It just empties the fish in here by the basketfuls. All we've
got to do is to empty 'em out,"--and he knelt on the bank to fix his
bait.

But Luke was not satisfied. "You'll never catch any fish there," said
he. "The current's too swift." And off went he, to look for a likelier
place.

Yet neither of the boys had better luck than when with the girls, and
both soon went back to them. When Elsie's vivid account of the rescue
had been given, the boys stared at Puss with a new interest, as though
she had undergone some transformation in their brief absence.

Then somebody suggested that they must hurry up and catch something for
dinner. So all five dropped hooks into the water, everybody pledged to
silence, Fishing was now business; it meant dinner or no dinner.

For some moments, the fishers sat or stood in statuesque silence, eyes
on the corks. Then Jacob Isaac showed signs of excitement.

"I's got a fish, show's yer bawn," he called, dancing about on the bank.

"Let me see it," John challenged.

"Aint pulled it out yit," said Jacob Isaac, jumping and capering.

"What's the matter with you? What are you cavorting about in that style
for?" John asked.

"Playin' 'im!" answered Jacob Isaac, running backward and forward, and
every other way.

"Is that the way they play a fish?" Elsie said, gazing. "I never knew
before how they did it."

She went over to where the jubilant fisherman was yet skipping about,
and asked if she might play the fish a while.

"Law, Miss Elsie! he'd pull yo' overboa'd! Yo' couldn't hol' 'im no maw
'n nuffin. He's mighty strong; stronges' fish ever did see."

But Elsie teased till Jacob Isaac gave the rod into her hand, when she
danced forward and back, chasse-ed, and executed other figures of a
quadrille, till Puss Leek came up to play the fish. She wasn't so much
like a katydid as Elsie, or so much like a wired jumping-jack as Jacob
Isaac. She played the fish so awkwardly that John came up and took the
rod from her hand. He had no sooner felt the pull at the line than he
began to laugh and "pshaw! pshaw!" and said that all in that party were
gumps and geese, except himself and Luke.

"You wouldn't except Luke," Elsie interrupted, "if he wasn't a big boy.
You'd call him a gump and a goose, if he was a girl."

"If he was a girl, he would be a gump and a g