Bobby Blake at Rockledge School: or, Winning the Medal of Honor

"We can't go in but once – you know we can't," said Bobby.

"Why not?" demanded Fred, quickly.

"Because we promised our mothers we wouldn't go in but once a day this vacation."

"Huh! That ain't saying but what we can take off our clothes and put on our swimming trunks, and stay in all day long."

"That would be just as dishonest as going in two or three times, Fred," exclaimed Bobby. "And you wouldn't do it. Besides," he added, grinning; "you know you tried that last summer, and 'member what you got for it?"

"You bet you!" exclaimed the red-haired one. "I got sunburned something fierce! No. I won't do that again. That's the day we built the raft on Sanders' Pond, and oh, how I hurt! I guess I do remember, all right."

"No," said Bobby, after a minute. "We'll go fishing first, and then take a swim before we go home. That'll clean us up, and make us feel fresh. There's that old stump again, Fred. I believe there's a big trout lives under that stump. Don't you 'member! We've seen him jump."

"Ya-as," scoffed Fred. "But that old fellow won't jump for a worm. He's had too many square meals this summer, don't you know? It'll take a fancy fly, like those my Uncle Jim uses when he goes fishing, to coax Mr. Trout out of the creek."

"I'm going to try," said Bobby, who could be obstinate in his opinion.

"I'll be satisfied if I catch a shiner," declared Fred. "I'll try off that rock yonder. Come on! There's a couple of dandy fishpoles."

Like real country boys, Bobby and Fred cut poles each time they went fishing. No need to carry them back and forth to their homes in Clinton and it did not take five minutes to cut and rig these poles.

"What nice, fat worms," said Bobby, when Fred shook up the tomato can.

"That's what the robin said," chuckled Fred. "Know what my sister, Betty, said yesterday morning? You know it rained the night before and the robins were picking up worms on the lawn right early – before breakfast.

"Bet was at the window and one fat robin picked up a worm, swallowed it, and flew right up into a tree where he began to sing like sixty! Bet says:

"'Oh! that robin gives me the squirms; how can he sing that way when he's all full of those crawly things?'"

"Now hush!" ordered Bobby, the next moment. "I'm going to drop this nice fellow right down beside that stump and see if I can coax Mr. Trout up."

But Mr. Trout did not appear. Bobby, with exemplary patience, tried it again and again. He changed his bait and dropped a fresh worm into the brown, cloudy water where he believed the trout lay.

"You're not fishing," chuckled Fred, from his station on the rock, a few yards away. "You're just drowning worms."

"Huh!" returned Bobby. "I don't see any medals on you. You haven't caught anything."

"But I'm going to!" whispered Fred, swiftly, and holding his pole with sudden attention.

Then, with a nervous jerk, he flung up the pole. Hook and sinker came with it, and a tiny, wriggling, silver fish, about a finger long, shot into the air. But Fred had not been careful to select his stand, and he drove his line and fish up among the branches of a tree.

"Now you've done it – and likely scared my trout," exclaimed Bobby.

Fred, in his usual impulsive fashion, tried to jerk back his line. The hook and sinker were caught around a branch. The shiner dropped off the hook and rested in a crotch of the branch. No fish ever was transformed into a bird so quickly since fishing was begun!

And while Bobby laughed, and held his sides, Fred jerked at the entangled line again and again until, stepping too far back, and pulling too hard, the line chanced to give a foot or two, Master Fred fell backwards and —flop! into the deep pool below the rock he went!

CHAPTER IV

AN EVENTFUL AFTERNOON

"On! oh! oh! – gurgle! gurgle! blob! Help! Give us a hand – "

Down Master Fred went again, and, his mouth being open, he swallowed more of the murky water of the creek than was good for him. He came up, coughing and blowing.

Bobby, although forced to laugh, extended the butt of his own fish pole and Fred seized it. In half a minute he was on the bank, panting and "blowing bubbles," as Bobby said.

"You can laugh – "

"I hope so," returned Bobby, turning to give his attention to his own hook and line. "Oh!"

Something was the matter down under that stump; the water was agitated. The taut line pulled in Bobby's hands.

"Oh! A bite!" cried he, picking up his pole. "Oh, Fred! I've hooked that old trout!"

Master Martin was too much taken up with his own affairs just then to pay much attention. Bobby, all of a tremble (for he had never caught a trout over a finger long), began to "play" the fish cautiously. It seemed to be sulking down in its hole under the old stump. Bobby pulled on the line gently.

Meanwhile Fred, getting his breath, began to remove his saturated garments.

"I guess," he grunted, "we might as well go in swimming right now. Gee! I'm wet. And these things will have to dry before I start home. Oh!"

Bobby's line "gave" suddenly. Bobby uttered a yell, for he thought the trout had jumped.

Whatever was on his hook shot to the surface of the brown pool. Bobby went over backward on the grass. The point of his pole stood straight up, and the hook was snapped out of the water.

There was a long, black, squirmy thing on the hook. As Bobby squealed, the eel flopped right down into his face!

"Aw! ouch! take him off!" shouted Bobby, and flung away his pole.

In a second the eel was so tangled in the fishline that one might have thought it and the line had been tied into a hard knot! Fred was rolling with laughter on the bank, his wet shirt half over his head.

"Scubbity-yow!" he shrieked. "Now you got it. You laughed at me, Bobby Blake. See how you get it yourself."

Bobby began to laugh, too. He could see that the joke was, after all, on him.

"And that's your big trout – ho, ho!" shouted Fred. "An old eel. Kill him with a club, Bobby. You'll never get him untangled if you don't."

"And he'll wiggle then till the sun goes down. Just like a snake," declared Bobby, repeating a boyish superstition held infallible by the boys of Clinton.

"Oh, dear!" sighed Fred, at last pulling the wet shirt off. "I'm aching for laughing. What a mess that line's in."

"And how about your own!" demanded Bobby, on a broad grin again, and pointing into the branches of the tree where Fred had flung his shiner.

"We're a pair of fine fishermen – I don't think!" admitted Fred, in some disgust.

He got off the remainder of his wet clothing, and slipped on his trunks.

"You might as well do the same, Bobby," he advised, while he laid his clothing over the low bushes back from the bank of the creek, where the sun could get at them nicely. "Look at your shirt. All slime from that old eel."