od food he wants, at suitable hours. To a boy thus engaged, the period
from the time he falls asleep in the evening till next morning, is apt
to be one of utter oblivion. That is the way to sleep. Older persons,
troubled by insomnia and its usual cause, bad digestion, would do well
to return to these simple and health-giving modes of life, best seen in
an active boy, or girl.

Somebody shook me. I thought I had but that moment fallen asleep. It was
Thomas. "Wake up," he whispered. "Let's you and I go catch some trout
for breakfast. They say this brook is full of them. I brought along my
hooks. Come on."

The word _trout_ is a good one to get a sleepy boy's eyes open with; I
rose at once.

"Let's go out still," whispered Tom, "so as not to wake the girls. I
don't want them to see us start off, for we may not have any luck, you
know; and it's a thing I never could stand, to come back from fishing,
with no fish, and have folks asking me where my fish are."

Addison was awake and lay regarding us, sleepily; but Willis had already
got up and gone out with the gun. It was quite light and nearing
sunrise; there was a slight frost on the crisp grass about the cabins.
The fire had gone out, hours before; not even a smoldering ember or a
wreath of smoke, remained of it. The squirrels had already begun to
"chicker" in the hazel copses; and a large pileated woodpecker was
calling out loudly from the top of a tall pine stub, off in the opening.

We had nothing for bait, except a bit of white, fat pork. First we went
down to the ford. "Look there," said Tom, pointing to our tracks of
yesterday in the sand and some more recent impressions, nearly or quite
as large. "See those bear tracks! Some bear has been smelling about
here, during the night! Oh, this is quite a place for game. But don't
talk _bear_ much before the girls, or we shall get them so skittish that
we cannot stir. They'll feel quite courageous this morning, when they
wake up and find nothing has carried them off, if they don't see these
bear tracks." Thomas proceeded to scuff the tracks over with his boot.

We then cut two hazel fishing rods, tied a line and hook to each, baited
the hooks with a scred of the pork, and then going down the stream, till
we came to a pool at a bend, crept carefully up to the verge of the bank
and gently dropped in our hooks.

"Shake 'em just a little easy," whispered Tom; for as yet my education
in the art of trout fishing had been ne