a bunch of bright feathers
covering the hooks at the end.

"Isn't that a beauty!" he exclaimed. "Cost a quarter. I bought it. John
Ellison gave me that money I found in the mill."

"It's fine," replied the girl. "Going to try it?"

"Sure," answered Tim. "My rod's hid down by the stream. I wanted to try
to tickle a trout when the shower ruffled the water here. Ever tickle a
trout?"

Bess Thornton laughed. "No," said she; "nor you, either, I guess."

"Honest injun, I have," asserted Tim, warmly. "You just put your hand
down in the water, and keep it still for an awful while; and by and by
perhaps a fish'll brush against it. Then he'll keep doing it, and then
you just move your hand and your fingers easy like, and the trout, he
kind er likes it. Then, when you get a good chance, you just grab quick
and throw him out on shore."

"Hm!" exclaimed the girl; "I'd like to see you do it."

They went along the brook to the road, passed up the road to a point
some way above the dam, when Tim Reardon presently disappeared in a
clump of bushes; from this he soon emerged, with his bamboo fish-pole.
They went down through the field to the shore.

Jointing up the rod and affixing the reel, Tim Reardon ran out his line,
tied on the bright spoon-hook and began trolling. The allurement proved
enticing, and presently he hooked a fish. Tim gallantly handed the rod
to Bess Thornton.

"Pull him in," he said. "I've caught lots of 'em. You can land this
one."

The girl seized the rod, with a little cry of delight, and lifted the
fish out of water. Then she swung it in on shore, where it lay, with its
green body twisting about in the grass, and its great jaws distended,
showing its sharp teeth.

"My, isn't he ugly looking!" she exclaimed. "You take the hook out, will
you, Tim?"

Tim, grasping the squirming fish tightly behind the gills, disengaged
the hook and threw the fish down in the grass again. "That one's yours,"
he said.

The girl still held the pole.

"Let me try just a minute, will you?" she asked. "If I get another, you
can have it."

Tim assented readily, and she swung the pole and cast the hook far out
upon the water. She drew it back and forth past a clump of lily pads,
and then cast again. She was not as skilful with the long rod as the boy
had been, however; and once, as she cast, the line did not have time to
straighten out behind her, and the hook fell in the water close by the
shore. She jerked it out and t