e
dug, then we will all three cut some rods and fish for half an hour."

But Halstead proceeded to string a hook, bait it with a bit of pork
which he had brought, and then dropped it into a hole beside an alder
bush at a bend of the stream.

"He is the most provoking fellow I ever saw," muttered Addison. "He will
fish all the time, and we will have the poke to dig. I meant to show you
a good hole to fish in, but now he will scare all the trout away!

"Come on, Halse!" he shouted back. "What's the use to skulk and shirk
like that?"

"O you dig viratum-viridy!" cried Halstead. "You understand all about
that, you know. I don't comprehend it well enough; but I guess I can
manage to fish a little." A moment after we saw him haul out a trout,
which glistened as it went wriggling through the air and fell in the
grass. Halse got it, and holding it up so that we could see it, shouted,
"No viratum-viridy about that!"

"No use fooling with him," Addison said to me. "His nose is out of joint
about that word. He will not lift a finger to help us, but will catch a
good string of fish to take home; and if I say a word about it to the
folks, he will declare that I was so overbearing that he couldn't work
with me. That's the song he always sings.

"Sometimes," continued Addison, with another backward glance of
suppressed indignation, "I get so 'mad' all through at that boy that I
could thrash him half to death. If it wasn't for Doad and the old
folks, I believe I should do it.

"But of course that isn't the best thing to do," Addison continued. "The
best way to get along is to have as little to do with him as you can,
and not pay any attention to his quirks. For he is the trick pony in
this family. You cannot go out with him anywheres, without having some
sort of a circus; I defy you to. You see now, if we ever go out
together, without a scrape."

We went on down the brook to the meadow, called after its owner's name;
the stream was more sluggish here, and along its turfy banks the clumps
of Indian poke were very numerous. With shovel and hoe, we then
proceeded to dig up the rank-growing and ranker-smelling plant. To get
out much of the root required a great effort, and we did not like to
smear our hands with the juice. For this plant (which is the same made
use of by homoeopathic physicians as a medicine) proves poisonous to
cattle when, as is sometimes the case in the early spring, the animals
are tempted to crop its rank, f