He went away whistling.  I wish he had been less optimistic.  When we came back and told him the whole story, and he sat with his mouth open and his hair, as he said, crackling at the roots, I reminded him with some bitterness that he had encouraged us.  His only retort was to say that the excursion itself had been harmless enough; but that if three elderly ladies, church members in good standing, chose to become freebooters and pirates the moment they got away from a corner policeman, they need not blame him.

The last thing he said that day in June was about fishing-worms.

“Take ’em with you,” he said.  “They charge a cent apiece for them up there, assorted colors, and there’s something stolid and British about a Canadian worm.  The fish aren’t crazy about ’em.  On the other hand, our worms here are—­er—­vivacious, animated.  I’ve seen a really brisk and on-to-its-job United States worm reach out and clutch a bass by the gills.”

I believe it was the next day that Tish went to the library and read about worms.  Aggie and I had spent the day buying tackle, according to Charlie Sands’s advice.  We got some very good rods with nickel-plated reels for two dollars and a quarter, a dozen assorted hooks for each person, and a dozen sinkers.  The man wanted to sell us what he called a “landing net,” but I took a good look at it and pinched Aggie.

“I can make one out of a barrel hoop and mosquito netting,” I whispered; so we did not buy it.

Perhaps he thought we were novices, for he insisted on showing us all sorts of absurd things—­trolling-hooks, he called them; gaff hooks for landing big fish and a spoon that was certainly no spoon and did not fool us for a minute, being only a few hooks and a red feather.  He asked a dollar and a quarter for it!

[I made one that night at home, using a bit of red feather from a duster.  It cost me just three cents.  Of that, as of Hutchins, more later.]

Aggie, whose idea of Canada had been the Hotel Frontenac, had grown rather depressed as our preparations proceeded.  She insisted that night on recalling the fact that Mr. Wiggins had been almost drowned in Canada.

“He went with the Roof and Gutter Club, Lizzie,” she said, “and he was a beautiful swimmer; but the water comes from the North Pole, freezing cold, and the first thing he knew—­”

The telephone bell rang just then.  It was Tish.

“I’ve just come from the library, Lizzie,” she said.  “We’d better raise the worms.  We’ve got a month to do it in.  Hutchins and I will be round with the car at eight o’clock to-night.  Night is the time to get them.”

She refused to go into details, but asked us to have an electric flash or two ready and a couple of wooden pails.  Also she said to wear mackintoshes and rubbers.  Just before she rang off, she asked me to see that there was a package of oatmeal on hand, but did not explain.  When I told Aggie she eyed me miserably.