te right away
as he had expected to, he wasn't the least bit discouraged. He kept very
quiet and fished and fished, patiently waiting for a foolish trout to
take his hook. But he didn't get so much as a nibble. "Either the trout
have lost their appetite or they have grown very wise," muttered Farmer
Brown's boy, as after a long time he moved on to the next little pool.

There the same thing happened. He was very patient, very, very patient,
but his patience brought no reward, not so much as the faintest kind of
a nibble. Farmer Brown's boy trudged on to the next pool, and there was
a puzzled frown on his freckled face. Such a thing never had happened
before. He didn't know what to make of it. All the night before he had
dreamed about the delicious dinner of fried trout he would have the next
day, and now--well, if he didn't catch some trout pretty soon, that
splendid dinner would never be anything but a dream.

"If I didn't know that nobody else comes fishing here, I should think
that somebody had been here this very morning and caught all the fish or
else frightened them so that they are all in hiding," said he, as he
trudged on to the next little pool. "I never had such bad luck in all my
life before. Hello! What's this?"

There, on the bank beside the little pool, were the heads of three
trout. Farmer Brown's boy scowled down at them more puzzled than ever.
"Somebody _has_ been fishing here, and they have had better luck than I
have," thought he. He looked up the Laughing Brook and down the Laughing
Brook and this way and that way, but no one was to be seen. Then he
picked up one of the little heads and looked at it sharply. "It wasn't
cut off with a knife; it was bitten off!" he exclaimed. "I wonder now if
Billy Mink is the scamp who has spoiled my fun."

Thereafter he kept a sharp lookout for signs of Billy Mink, but though
he found two or three more trout heads, he saw no other signs and he
caught no fish. This puzzled him more than ever. It didn't seem possible
that such a little fellow as Billy Mink could have caught or frightened
all the fish or have eaten so many. Besides, he didn't remember ever
having known Billy to leave heads around that way. Billy sometimes
catches more fish than he can eat, but then he usually hides them. The
farther he went down the Laughing Brook, the more puzzled Farmer Brown's
boy grew. It made him feel very queer. He would have felt still more
queer if he had known that all the t