ently slid the bolt of the kitchen door, stepped outside and
closed the door after her. Then she made her way out through the
neglected garden to an old apple-tree, against which there leaned a long
slender alder pole, with a line and hook attached. Throwing this over
her shoulder, she started down through the fields in the direction of
the brook.

On the way, a few grasshoppers, roused from their early naps in the
grass by the girl's bare feet, jumped this side and that. But, with the
coolness of the hour, they seemed to have some of old Grannie Thornton's
rheumatism in their joints, for they tumbled and sprawled clumsily. The
girl quickly captured several of them, tying them up in a fold of her
handkerchief.

Presently she came near the borders of the pool, dear to the heart of
Farmer Ellison. But the edge of the pool on the side where she walked
was boggy. Gazing sharply for some moments up at the big house on the
hill, the girl darted down to the edge of the brook close by the dam,
then suddenly skimmed across it to the other side.

A little way above the dam, on that side, there were clumps of bushes,
among which one might steal softly to the water's edge, on good, firm
footing. The girl did this, seated herself on a little knoll behind a
screen of shrubs, baited the hook with a fat grasshopper and cast it
into the pool.

"Grasshopper Green, go catch me a trout," she whispered; "and don't you
dare come back without a big--"

Splash! There was a quick, sharp whirl in the still water; a tautening
of the line, a hard jerk of the rod, and the girl was drawing in a plump
fellow that was fighting gamely and wrathfully for his freedom. The fish
darted to and fro for a moment, lashed the water into a miniature
upheaval, and then swung in to where a small but strong little hand
clutched him.

"Oh, you beauty!" she exclaimed, gazing triumphantly and admiringly at
his brilliant spots. "Didn't you know better than to try to eat poor old
Grasshopper Green? See what you get for it. Gran'll eat you now."

She took the trout from the hook, dropped it among the shrubs, took
another "grasshopper green" from her handkerchief, and cast again. A
second and a third trout rewarded her efforts.

But Bess Thornton, the grasshoppers and the trout were not the only ones
stirring abroad early this pleasant morning. A person not all intent
upon fishing, nor absorbed in the excitement of it, might have seen, had
he looked in the direc