CHAPTER XVI
JUST FISHING
Some days later the Whatnot Shop was being dismantled, that is theshelves were being treated to a great clearing off, and theold-fashioned glass cases were being lined with white oilcloth,preparatory to Miss Manners' Domestic Science Class storing theirsamples of food therein.
Gradually Nancy's sense of honor was coming back into its own, for notonly her mother but also her girl friends were constantly reassuringher.
"There's nothing small nor frivolous about changing one's mind for thebetter," they told her. "In fact," said the mother, "that one is willingto do so, is very often a mark of progress. If we didn't change ourminds how could we grow wiser?"
"But I thought I'd just love business," Nancy complained. "I was crazyto keep store and now I'm crazy to start something else."
"Which is perfectly normal and entirely reasonable for any healthy younggirl," her mother insisted. "Can you imagine girls being as staid and asold fashioned as their mothers?"
"Moth-thur!" Nancy sort of moaned, "If ever I could be as _new_fashioned as my mother I shouldn't mind how old nor how young I mightbe. And you are a love not to scold me. I know you are glad to see Mannyso happy setting-up her school, and I know you will be better satisfiedto have her there, facing the fierce public, than allowing me to do so.Not that I had any trouble with the dear public," Nancy mocked. "And notthat Brother Ted wasn't always within a few miles call if I needed him.But, at any rate, Mums, I did make some real money, didn't I?" shecooed, quite birdlike for Nancy.
A clean little, yellow bankbook was offered for evidence by Mrs. Brandonat this question, for being a business woman, she knew the value ofpersonal interest in every part of a business undertaking, and so, earlyin the experiment, she had brought Nancy into the City Bank and thereattended to the formalities of opening her bank account.
"Mother, you keep the book, please," Nancy begged just now, as Mrs.Brandon offered it to her. "I know I ought to be very careful and notforget where I put things, but somehow I do. And I would hate to losethat precious book," she murmured, touching her mother's cheek with herlips as she made the appeal.
"Very well, daughter," Mrs. Brandon conceded, "but you simply must learnto remember, and the way to do that is think of a thing as you do it,"she advised.
Nancy was, however, already improving in such matters. Being obliged tofind things for herself, instead of calling out to Anna, the maid, asshe had been in the habit of doing, was teaching a lesson that words hadnever been able to convey to her.
It now lacked but three days of the opening of the class, and in thesedays Nancy and Ted were planning to have a great time fishing,exploring, and hunting. By "hunting" they meant looking for Indianrelics along the river bank, for Ted insisted there really were sucharticles to be found there, if one were only patient enough in thesearch.
This was the day set for fishing, and Ted was just now coming up to theback door with a tin can slung on a string, and that, in turn, was slungover his shoulder on a pole.
"Got lots of them!" he called out. "Nice fat ones, too. We can catch bigfish with such worms as these," and he set down the outfit to displayhis freshly dug bait.
"Well, I'm not going to put them on the hook," protested Nancy. "I don'tmind handling the slippery little things, but I can't murder them.You'll have to bait my hook, Ted, if you want me to go," she insisted.
"Oh, all right," growled Ted, merely pretending to protest, but reallyjust showing his boyish contempt for such girlish whims. "I'll put themon for you. But do hurry, Nan," he urged. "This is a dandy morning tofish. Hardly any sun at all."
Calling good-bye to Miss Manners, who, even, this early, was at work inthe store, Nancy was soon ready to start off with her brother on thefishing trip. She was clad in her oldest gingham, and wore her mostbattered big straw hat, nevertheless she looked quite picturesque, ifnot really pretty even in this rough attire; for Nancy was ever astriking looking girl.
"Think we ought to take your old express wagon, Ted?" she asked,jokingly.
"What for?" demanded the boy in surprise.
"To carry them home in," laughed Nancy. But even then Ted didn't see thejoke.
Presently they were trudging along the heavily shaded road that wound inand out around Bird's Woods until it would stretch along side Oak'sPond, where the fishing was to be done.
"It's fine to have you come, Nan," remarked the boy, wagging his barehead and slapping his fish bag against his bare legs. Ted was wearingold clothes himself, and his trousers had not been trimmed any tooevenly, for one leg ended above the knee and the other leg ended belowthe other knee. But he looked about right as a fisher-boy, his cheekswell tanned, his brown eyes sparkling and his browner hair doing prettymuch as it pleased all over his head.
"I'm mighty glad to come, Ted," Nancy was saying in reply to his gentlelittle compliment. "It is great to be off all by ourselves, although, ofcourse, I have good enough times with the girls," she amended, loyally.
"Me too," added Ted, "I have lots of sport with the fellows but this isbetter," he concluded, as Ted would.
Arrived at a spot where the pond dug into a soft green bank, roundinginto a beautiful semi-circular basin, brother and sister there camped.Ted insisted that Nancy take the choicest seat, a smooth spot on the bigtree that must have been felled years before, and which had foundcomfortable quarters on the edge of the jolly little stream. Sympatheticferns stretched their soft green fronds along the sides of the nakedwood, as if they wanted to supply the fallen tree with some of theverdure of which it had been cruelly bereft, and even a gay, floweringswamp lily, that wonderful flaming flower that holds its chalice aboveall other wood blooms, bent just a little toward the one branch of thattree that still clung to the parent trunk.
Nancy squatted down expectantly. Ted had baited her hook and she was nowcasting out her line in the smooth, mysterious stream, clear enough onthe surface, but darker than night beneath. She had removed her "sneaks"and stockings, so that she might enjoy the freedom of dipping her toesinto the little ripples that played around the log.
"I don't care whether I catch anything or not," she remarked, "it'slovely just to sit here and fish."
"We'll catch, all right," Ted assured her. "This is a great place forfish--regular nest of them in under these rocks." He shifted a little onhis perch, which was on a live tree that leaned out of the stream.
Presently Nancy developed a song from the tune she had been humming:
"Singing eyly-eely-ho! Eyly-eely-ho!"
"Got to keep quiet when you fish," Ted interrupted her.
"All right," agreed Nancy affably. "But that tune has been simmering allday and I just had to let it light up. Say Ted," she began all overagain, "did you hear about your friend, Mr. Sanders, getting rich?"
"Rich? I'm glad of it. He's all right," the boy declared, flipping hisline to a new spot.
"Yep-py, rich," Nancy repeated. "He's living at the hotel."
"Oh, I knew that," scoffed the boy, airily.
"Did you? Then why didn't you tell me?"
"Secret," snapped Ted, shutting his lips with a snap that even aventuresome fish might have heard.
"And the Townsends--they are quite prosperous too," Nancy pressedfurther.
"Ye-ah." Ted was not encouraging the confidence.
For a few moments neither of them spoke again. Then Nancy's line beganto draw, to pull out into a straight line.
"Easy!" whispered Ted. "You've got a bite! Don't yank it. Wait untilhe's on, good and tight!"
They waited, breathless. Then Ted, the experienced, gave the signal, andNancy, the amateur, drew very gently on her pole. Up, up, but stillunder water, until suddenly the water surface freed the capture, andsomething black, shiny, snaky, dangled violently from the upheld line!
"Oh, Ted, quick! It's a snake! Look a snake!" cried Nancy, getting toher feet finally, after slipping several times on the smooth log.
; "Look out," yelled Ted, for the black slimy thing dangling on Nancy'sline seemed to be making directly for her face, as it swung back andforth and darted violently toward the shore.
"Oh-h-h-h-h!" Nancy screamed. "He's going for--" But she was taking nofurther chances, instead, she flung her pole, line and hook and catch,as far from her as a single fling could send it. The pole floatedcontentedly but the slimy thing was again hidden in its beloved waters,although it must have still been impaled upon the tortuous hook.
Ted looked a moment at the lost outfit.
"Nancy," he said gloomily. "You're crazy. That was a fine, fat eel, andthey're hard to catch that way. And look at--your--pole."
"I'll get it," decided the surprised girl, instantly slipping down fromthe log and leaning out over the stream.
"Don't!" yelled Ted. But the warning was given too late, for as Nancystepped on what seemed to be grass, she found herself thrust into thewater, deep enough to frighten her of something worse than a snake.
"Oh!" she yelled again. "I've got to swim out, I'll smother in the bogif--I--don't." And so saying she flung her body free from the deepmarsh-grass, and struck out in an emergency stroke toward the openstream.
"Go up to the cove!" Ted yelled. "Just around that pine tree! I'll meetyou there!"
The light clothing she wore was not much more cumbersome than somebathing suits are often found to be, so that Nancy, a capable swimmer,was now pulling surely toward the cove, while Ted was racing, as best hecould in the heavy undergrowth to meet her as she would land.
But just as Nancy turned in to a clear little corner to make herlanding, she heard a muffled call.
"Help! Help!" came the indistinct cry.
Ted was abreast of her and he too heard the call.
"It's over in the sand dunes," he yelled, as Nancy stepped ashore andshook some of the heavy water from her clothing. "Quick, Nancy, thefellows went to play Indian there!"