out--all is well. Trout is food. One must eat. The search for food needs
no defense, and yet, the curious fact is, that if you go for trout and
don't get any, it doesn't make so much difference as you might suppose,
but if you go for arbutus and don't get any, it makes all the difference
in the world. And so Jonathan knows that in choosing his brook for that
particular day, he must have regard primarily to the arbutus it will give
us and only secondarily to the trout.

Every one knows the kind of brook that is, for every one knows the kind of
country arbutus loves--hilly country, with slopes toward the north; bits of
woodland, preferably with pine in it, to give shade, but not too deep
shade; a scrub undergrowth of laurel and huckleberry and bay; and always,
somewhere within sight or hearing, water. It is curious how arbutus, which
never grows in wet places, yet seems to like the neighborhood of water. It
loves the slopes above a brook or the shaggy hillsides overlooking a
little pond or river.

Fortunately, there is such a brook, in just such country, on our list.
There are not so many trout as in other brooks, but enough to justify our
rods; and not so much arbutus as I could find elsewhere, but enough--oh,
enough!

To this brook we go. We tie Kit at the bridge, Jonathan slings on a
fish-basket, to do for both, and I take a box or two for the flowers. But
from this moment on our interests are somewhat at variance. The fact is,
Jonathan cares a little more about the trout than about the arbutus, while
I care a little more about the arbutus than about the trout. His eye is
keenly on the brook, mine is, yearningly, on the ragged hillsides that
roll up above it.

Jonathan feels this. "There isn't any for two fields yet--might as well
stick to the brook."

"I know. I thought perhaps I'd go on down and let you fish this part. Then
I'd meet you beyond the second fence--"

"Oh, no, that won't do at all. Why, there's a rock just below here--down by
that wild cherry--where I took out a beauty last year, and left another. I
want you to go down and get him."

"You get him. I don't mind."

"Oh, but I mind. Here, I've got it all planned: there's a bit of
brush-fishing just below--"

"No brush-fishing for me, please!"

"That's what I'm saying, if you'll only give me time. I'll take that--there
are always two or three in there--and when you've finished here you can go
around me and fish the bend, under the hemlocks, and t