"Sure you"ll fish," Daddy a.s.sured him. "Likely, you"ll catch one, though you never can tell. A good sportsman doesn"t growl even if he spends a whole day and doesn"t catch one fish. We"ll be good sports, shan"t we?"
"Yes," agreed Sunny Boy. "But I would rather catch a fish."
Daddy laughed and began to whistle.
"Do you know Jimmie?" said Sunny Boy, running to keep up with him. "Do you know Jimmie and Mr. Sites and Araminta and David and Raymond and Juddy and Fred and Sarah and Dorabelle? Do you, Daddy?"
"I went to school with a boy named Jaspar Sites," Daddy stopped whistling to answer. "Guess he"s the same. Araminta helps Grandma--I know her, and Jimmie I"ve met before. But I must say the others haven"t the pleasure of my acquaintance--who is Dorabelle, may I ask?"
"They"re Araminta"s brothers and sisters," explained Sunny Boy. "They live down the road. Let"s fish now, Daddy."
"We will," agreed Mr. Horton. "You"ve picked out a good place. Now first I"ll start you in, and then I"ll try my luck."
He found a nice long branch for Sunny, and tied a fish-line to it. At the end of the line he fastened a bent pin with a bit of cracker on the point.
"There you are," he told him. "Now you sit out here on the dead roots of this tree that hangs over the bank, and you dangle the cracker in the water and keep very, very still. And perhaps a little fish on his way to the grocery store for his mother will see the cracker and want a bite of lunch. Then you"ll catch him."
Sunny Boy sat very still while Daddy baited a sharp thin hook with real bait and threw his line into the water, too. He sat down beside Sunny and together they waited.
"Daddy!" said Sunny Boy after a long while.
Mr. Horton raised a warning finger.
"But Daddy?" this after Sunny Boy had waited a longer time.
"You"ll scare the fish," Mr. Horton whispered. "What is it?"
"My foot p.r.i.c.kles!"
Mr. Horton took his line and whispered to him to get up and run about.
Sunny Boy"s foot felt too funny for words, and at first he was sure it had dropped off while he had been sitting on it. He could not feel it at all. After stamping up and down a few minutes the funny feeling went away, and he came back to his father and took his line.
"Your foot was asleep," said Mr. Horton in a low tone. "Don"t sit on it again. Feel a nibble?"
Sunny Boy drew his line up and looked at it. There was nothing at all on the pin.
"Percy Perch must have taken that cracker when you weren"t looking," said Mr. Horton, putting another cracker on. "Now watch out that Tommy Trout doesn"t run off with this."
Sunny Boy waited and waited. A yellow b.u.t.terfly came and sat down on a blade of gra.s.s near him. Sunny looked at it more closely--it was a funny b.u.t.terfly--a funny b.u.t.ter--
Splash went his rod and line, but he never heard it. Sunny Boy was fast asleep, and Tommy Trout must have run away with the pin and the cracker because they were never heard of again. When Sunny Boy opened his eyes again, his father was folding up his fishing tackle.
"h.e.l.lo! You"re a great fisherman!" Daddy greeted him. "See what we"re going to take home to Mother to surprise her."
Sunny Boy rubbed his sleepy eyes. There on the gra.s.s lay four pretty little fish.
"Did you catch them?" he asked Daddy, who nodded.
"My land of Goshen!" said Sunny Boy.
"Where"d you pick that up?" demanded Daddy. "Do you think apple pie might help you to feel spryer?"
Sunny Boy was interested in pie, and he helped Daddy to spread the little white cloth on the ground. He had not known a picnic was part of the fun of fishing!
CHAPTER XI
THE HAY SLIDE
"Daddy," said Sunny Boy, as he munched a sandwich, lying on his stomach and looking down into the brook from the safe height of the bank, "how much is five hundred dollars?"
"A large sum of money," answered Mr. Horton, surprised. "Why, Son? What do you know about such things? Little boys shouldn"t be bothering about money for years and years to come."
So Sunny told him about Grandpa"s bonds and how he had lost them by pasting them on his kite. Mr. Horton was very sorry, but he said little.
"Only remember this, Sunny Boy," he insisted gravely. "I would rather you told me yourself than to have heard it from any one else--even from Mother. When you"ve done anything good or bad that you think I should know, you tell me yourself, always. And now how about going wading?"
That was great fun. Sunny Boy rolled his trousers up as far as they would go and took off his shoes and stockings. The water was not deep, but, my!
wasn"t it cold? Little baby fish darted in and out, and ever so many times Sunny thought he had a handful of them. But when he unclosed his hands there was never anything in them but water, and not much of that.
"If I did catch a fish, could I keep him, Daddy?" Sunny asked. "I could carry home some brook for him to live in."
Sunny meant some of the brook water. Daddy explained that the baby fish, minnows they are called, would not be happy living in a bowl as the goldfish Sunny once had were.
"And you wouldn"t want a fish to be unhappy, would you?" questioned Daddy. "Of course you wouldn"t. But I"ll tell you something better to do than trying to catch fish that only want to be left alone."
"Something to do with my shoes and stockings off?" stipulated Sunny anxiously. "I haven"t been wading hardly a minute yet, Daddy."
Daddy laughed a little. He was lying flat on his stomach as Sunny had done, peering over the bank down at the water. He seemed to be having a very good time, did Daddy.
"This is something you can do without your shoes and stockings," he a.s.sured the small figure standing in the middle of the brook. "Indeed, I thought of it because you are all fixed for doing it. You know Mother was talking about her Christmas presents last night?"
Sunny nodded.
"She"s sewing a bag for Aunt Bessie," he confided, "and Grandma is getting ready, too. But I think Christmas is about a year off, Daddy."
"Not a year--about five months," corrected Daddy. "That seems like a long time to you. But Mother likes to start early and make many of her presents. And a very good way it is, too. Well, Sunny Boy, I once heard Mother say that she would like to try making an indoor garden for some of her friends who live in apartments and have no gardens of their own.
Only, Mother said, she must experiment first and find out what would grow best."
"What"s an indoor garden?"
"Oh, there are different kinds," answered Daddy. "But I think the kind Mother is anxious to try is very simple. Just damp moss and a vine or two put into a gla.s.s bowl. They will grow and keep green all Winter and be pretty to look at."
"I could get her some moss," said Sunny quickly. "See, those stones are all covered, Daddy."