"

Lured by the subject Ted came nearer.

"Any pickerel holes where you lived?" inquired Mr. Fernald boyishly.

"You bet there were!" replied the lad. "We had a black, scraggy pond
two miles away, dotted with stumps and rotting tree trunks. About
sundown we fellows would steal a leaky old punt anchored there and pole
along the water's edge until we reached a place where the water was
deep, and then we'd toss a line in among the roots. It wasn't long
before there would be something doing," concluded he, with a merry
laugh.

"How gamey those fish are!" observed Mr. Fernald reminiscently. "And
bass are sporty, too."

"I'd rather fish for bass than anything else!" asserted Ted.

"Ever tried landlocked salmon?"

"N--o. We didn't get those."

"That's what you get in Maine and New Brunswick," explained Mr.
Fernald. "I don't know, though, that they are any more fun to land than
a good, spirited bass. I often think that all these fashionable camps
with their guides, and canoes, and fishing tackles of the latest
variety can't touch a Vermont brook just after the ice has thawed. I'd
give all I own to live one of those days of my boyhood over again!"

"So would I!" echoed Ted.

"Pooh, nonsense!" objected Mr. Fernald. "You are young and will
probably scramble over the rocks for years to come. But I'm an old
chap, too stiff in the joints now to wade a brook. Still it is a
pleasure to go back to it in your mind."

His face became grave, then lighted with a quick smile.

"I'll wager the material for those curtains of yours never was bought
round here. Didn't that come from Vermont? And the andirons, too?"

"Yes, sir."

"Ah, I knew it! We had some of that old shiny chintz at home for
curtains round my mother's four-poster bed."

He rose and began to pace the room thoughtfully.

"Some day my son is going to bring his boy over here," he remarked. "He
is interested in electricity and knows quite a bit about it. I was
always attracted to science when I was a youngster. I----"

He got no further for there was a stir outside, a sound of voices, and
a snapping of dry twigs; and as Ted glanced through the broad frame of
the doorway he saw to his amazement Mr. Clarence Fernald wheel up the
incline just outside a rubber-tired chair in which sat Laurie.

"I declare if here isn't my grandson now!" exclaimed Mr. Fernald,
bustling toward the entrance of the shack.

Ah, it needed no great perception on Ted's part to interpret t