"Well, I ain"t," said Horace, pulling his hat over his eyes, and looking ashamed. "The teacher don"t keep no order, and I won"t go to such a school, so there!"
"They don"t want _me_ to go," said Prudy, ""cause I should know too much. I can say all my letters now, right down straight, "thout looking on, either."
"O, ho!" cried Horace, trailing his long pole, "you can"t say "em skipping about, and I shouldn"t care, if I was you. But you ought to know how to fish, Miss. Don"t you wish you could drop in your line, and catch "em the way I do?"
"Do they like to have you catch "em?" said Prudy, dropping her little dipper, and going to the fence; "don"t it hurt?"
"Hurt? Not as I know of. They needn"t bite if they don"t want to."
"No," returned Prudy, looking very wise, "I s"pose they want to get out, and that"s why they bite. Of course when fishes stay in the water much it makes "em drown."
"O, my stars!" cried Horace, laughing, "you ought to live "out west,"
you"re such a cunning little spud. Come, now, here"s another fish-pole for you. I"ll show you how to catch one, and I bet "twill be a pollywog--you"re just big enough."
"But grandma didn"t say I might go down to the river. Wait till I go ask her."
"Poh!" said Horace, "no you needn"t; I have to hurry. Grandma _always_ likes it when you go with me, Prudy, because you see I"m a boy, and she knows I can take care of you twice as well as Grace and Susy can."
"O," cried Prudy, clapping her little hands, "they won"t any of "em know I can fish, and how they"ll laugh. But there, now, they don"t let me climb the fence--I forgot."
"Well, give us your bonnet, and then you "scooch" down, and I"ll pull you through."
"There," said the naughty boy, when they had got down to the river, "now I"ve been and put a bait on the end of your hook, and I plump it in the water--so. You just hold on to the pole."
"But it jiggles--it tips me!" cried Prudy; and as she spoke she fell face downwards on the bank.
"Well, that"s smart!" said Horace, picking her up. "There, you sit down next time, and I"ll prop up the pole with a rock--this way.
There, now, you hold it a little easy, and when you feel a nibble you let me know."
"What"s a nibble?" asked Prudy, shaking the line.
"A nibble? Why, it"s a bite."
They sat quite still for some minutes, the hot sun glaring on Prudy"s bare head with its rings of soft golden hair.
"Now, now!" cried she suddenly, "I"ve got a nibble!"
Horace sprang to draw up her line.
"I feel it right here on my neck," said the child; "I s"pose it"s a fly."
"Now, look here," said Horace, rather vexed, "you"re a little too bad.
You made me drop my line just when I was going to have a nibble. Wait till you feel the string wiggle, and then speak, but don"t scream."
The children sat still for a few minutes longer, and no sound was heard but now and then a wagon going over the bridge. But they might as well have dropped their lines in the sand for all the fish they caught. Horace began to wish he had gone to school.
"O dear!" groaned Prudy, getting tired, "I never did see such fishes.
I guess they don"t want to be catched."
"There, now you"ve spoke again, and scared one away," said Horace. "If it hadn"t been for you I should have got, I don"t know how many, by this time."
Prudy"s lip began to tremble, and two big round tears rose to her eyes.
"Poh! crying about that?" said Horace; "you"re a nice little girl if you do talk too much, so don"t you cry."
Horace rather enjoyed seeing Grace and Susy in tears, but could never bear to have Prudy cry.
"I"ll tell you what it is," said Horace, when Prudy"s eyes were clear again, "I don"t think I make much playing hookey."
"I don"t like playing "hookey" neither," returned Prudy, ""cause the hooks won"t catch "em."
"O, you don"t know what I mean," laughed Horace. "When we boys "out west" stay out of school, we call _that_ playing hookey."
"O, do you? But I want to go home now, if we can"t catch any nibbles."
"No, I"ll tell you what we"ll do--we"ll walk out on that log, and try it there."
The river was quite high, and this was one of the logs that had drifted down from the "Rips." Prudy was really afraid to walk on it, because it was "so round," but not liking to be laughed at, she crept on her hands and knees to the very end of the log, trembling all the way.
Horace took the two poles and followed; but the moment he stepped on the log it rolled quite over, carrying Prudy under.
I do not know what Horace thought then, but he had to think fast. If he had been older he might have plunged in after Prudy, but he was only a little boy, seven years old, so he ran for the house. O, how he ran!
Aunt Madge was ironing in the back kitchen. She heard heavy breathing, and the quick pattering of feet, and the words gasped out, "Prudy"s in the river!"
"Prudy!" screamed aunt Madge, looking wildly at the boy"s face, which was as white as death.
"Run, tell grandpa!" cried she, and flew down the steps, and out across the field towards the river, as if she had wings on her slippers, though it seemed to her they were clogged with lead.
"Has she just been saved from death only to be drowned?" was one of the quick thoughts that rushed across aunt Madge"s dizzy brain. "I shall be too late! too late! And her mother gone! G.o.d forgive me! It is I who should have watched her!"
Poor aunt Madge! as if any one was to blame but Horace.
There was a child crying down by the river.
"Not Prudy," thought aunt Madge. "It sounds like her voice, but it can"t be. She has sunk by this time!"
"Don"t be afraid, Prudy!" cried Mr. Allen, who was just behind aunt Madge, "we are running to you."
The cry came up louder: it was Prudy"s voice.
Mr. Allen leaped the fence at a bound, and ran down the bank. The child was out of the water, struggling to climb the bank, but slipping back at every step. She was dripping wet, and covered with sand.
Mr. Allen lifted her in his arms, and there she lay, sobbing as if her heart would break, but not speaking a word.
When she was lying, clean and warm, in soft blankets, and had had a nap, she told them how she got out.
"The log kept jiggling," said she, "and I couldn"t hold on, but I did.
I thought my father would say I was a nice little girl not to get drowned, and let the fishes eat me up, and so I kept a-holdin" on."