The Wreck of the Red Bird: A Story of the Carolina Coast. Eggleston George Cary

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ it hasn't," said Ned. "Look and see. It's you that turned over. Are you hurt, old fellow?"

      Charley was by this time on his feet again, and declared himself wholly free from hurt of any kind. The trunks were brought in, the driver turned over to Maum Sally's hospitality, and Ned declared it to be time for bed.

      "Whew! how cold it is!" exclaimed Jack. "Do you have such changes of weather often, down here on the coast?"

      "Only twice in twenty-four hours at this season," answered Ned, as they went into the house.

      "Twice in twenty-four hours! What do you mean?"

      "I mean once in twelve hours," answered Ned.

      "How is that? I don't understand."

      "Well, you see our late summer dews have begun to fall. If you were to go out now, you would find the water actually dripping from the trees. From this time on it will be chilly at night, almost cold, in fact, but hot as the tropic of Cancer in the daytime. So we have a sudden change of temperature twice a day – once from cold to hot, and once from hot to cold."

      The boys were too sleepy to talk long, and the sun was shining in at the east windows when Maum Sally waked them the next morning for a breakfast as miscellaneous as the supper had been; sliced tomatoes and figs, still wet with the dew, being prominent features of the meal.

      After breakfast Ned looked up a great variety of fishing tackle and got it in order.

      "Where are your fish poles?" asked one of the boys.

      "Fish poles! we don't use them in salt water. We fish with tight lines."

      "What are they?"

      "Why, long lines with a sinker at the end and no poles."

      "Do you just hold the line in your hand?"

      "Certainly. And another thing that we don't use is a float. We just fish right down in the deep water – or the shallow water rather, for the best fishing is on bars where the water isn't more than twenty feet deep; but deep or shallow, the fish are at the bottom, except skip-jacks; they swim on top, and sometimes we troll for them. They call them blue fish up North, I believe, but we call them skip-jacks or jack mackerel."

      "What's that?" asked Jack, as Ned spread out a round net for inspection.

      "A cast net."

      "What's it for?"

      "Shrimps."

      "But I thought we were going fishing."

      "So we are. But we must go shrimping first. We must have some bait."

      "Oh, we are to use shrimps for bait, are we?"

      "Very much so indeed," answered Ned. "They are capital bait – the best we have, unless we want to catch sheephead; then we use fiddlers."

      "What are fiddlers?"

      "Little black crabs that run about by millions over the sand. They have hard shells that whiting and croakers can't crack, while the sheephead, having good teeth, crush them easily. So when we want to catch sheephead, and don't want to be bothered with other fish, we bait with fiddlers."

      "Then I understand that fish are so plentiful here and so easily caught that they bother you when you want to catch particular kinds?" said Jack, incredulously.

      "If you mean that for a question," answered Ned, "I'll let you answer it for yourself after you've had a little experience."

      "Well, if we don't get any shrimps," said Charley, "we'll fish for sheephead with musicians."

      "Musicians? oh, you mean fiddlers," said Ned. "But we'll get shrimps enough."

      "Do they bother you, too, with their abundance?" asked Jack, still inclined to joke his friend.

      "Come on and see," said Ned, who had now prepared himself for wading.

      Taking the cast net in his hand, and giving a pail to Jack, he led the way to the sea. Wading into the mouth of a little inlet he cast the net, which was simply a circular piece of netting, with a string of leaden balls around the edge. From this lead line cords extended on the under side of the net to and through a ring in the centre where they were fastened to a long cord which was held in Ned's hand. A peculiar motion in casting caused the net to spread itself out flat and to fall in that way on the water. The leaden balls caused it to sink at once to the bottom, the edges reaching bottom first, of course, and imprisoning whatever happened to be under the net in its passage. After a moment's pause, to give time for the lead line to sink completely, Ned jerked the cord and began to draw in. Of course this drew the lead line along the bottom to the centre ring, and made a complete pocket of the net, securely holding whatever was caught in it.

      It came up after this first cast with about a hundred shrimps – of the large kind called prawn in the North – in it. The boys opened their eyes in surprise, and Ned cast again, bringing up this time about twice as many as before.

      "They have hardly begun to come in yet," said Ned. "The tide is too young."

      "Hardly begun to come in?" said Jack, "why, the water's alive with them. Let me throw the net."

      "Certainly," said Ned, "if you know how."

      "Know how? Why, there's no knack in that; anybody can do it."

      With this confident boast Jack took the net and gave a violent cast. Neglecting to relax the rope at the right moment, however, the confident young gentleman made trouble for himself. The lead line swung around rapidly, the net wrapped itself around Jack, and the leaden balls struck him with sufficient violence to hurt. He lost his balance at the same instant, and, his legs being held close together by the wet net, he could not step out to recover himself. The result was that he fell sprawling into the water and was fished out in a very wet condition by his companions.

      Jack was a boy capable of seeing the fun even in an accident of which he was the victim. He stood still while the net was unwound, and for a moment afterward. Then, seeing that the other boys were too considerate to laugh at him while in trouble, he quietly said:

      "I told you I could do it."

      "Well, you caught more in the net than I did," said Ned. "Now take hold again and I'll show you how to manage it. Your wet clothes won't hurt you. Sea-water doesn't give one cold."

      A few lessons made Jack fairly expert in casting, but Charley had no mind to court mishaps, and would not try his skill. The pail was soon well filled with shrimps, and the boys returned to the boat house, where Jack changed his wet clothes for dry ones.

      Then all haste was made to get the boat out, in order that they might fish while the tide was right. The boat was a large launch named Red Bird; a boat twenty-four feet long, very broad in the beam, and very stoutly built. It was provided with a mast and sail, but these were of no use now as there was no wind, and the bars on which Ned meant to fish were only a few hundred yards distant.

      No sooner was the anchor cast than the lines were out, and the fish began accepting the polite invitation extended to them.

      "What sort of fish are these, Ned?" asked Charley, as he took one from his hook.

      "That," said Ned, looking round, "is a whiting – so called, I believe, because it is brown, and yellow, and occasionally pink and purple, СКАЧАТЬ