In Our Time Read Free Page B

asked.
    â€œI can just remember,” Nick said.
    â€œIt seems more like a castle,” Marjorie said.
    Nick said nothing. They rowed on out of sight of the mill, following the shore line. Then Nick cut across the bay.
    â€œThey aren’t striking,” he said.
    â€œNo,” Marjorie said. She was intent on the rod all the time they trolled, even when she talked. She loved to fish. She loved to fish with Nick.
    Close beside the boat a big trout broke the surface of the water. Nick pulled hard on one oar so the boat would turn and the bait spinning far behind would pass where the trout was feeding. As the trout’s back came up out of the water the minnows jumped wildly. They sprinkled the surface like a handful of shot thrown into the water. Another trout broke water, feeding on the other side of the boat.
    â€œThey’re feeding,” Marjorie said.
    â€œBut they won’t strike,” Nick said.
    He rowed the boat around to troll past both the feeding fish, then headed it for the point. Marjorie did not reel in until the boat touched the shore.
    They pulled the boat up the beach and Nick lifted out a pail of live perch. The perch swam in the water in the pail. Nick caught three of them with his hands and cut their heads off and skinned them while Marjorie chased with her hands in the bucket, finally caught a perch, cut its head off and skinned it. Nick looked at her fish.
    â€œYou don’t want to take the ventral fin out,” he said. “It’ll be all right for bait but it’s better with the ventral fin in.”
    He hooked each of the skinned perch through the tail. There were two hooks attached to a leader on each rod. Then Marjorie rowed the boat out over the channel-bank, holding the line in her teeth, and looking toward Nick, who stood on the shore holding the rod and letting the line run out from the reel.
    â€œThat’s about right,” he called.
    â€œShould I let it drop?” Marjorie called back, holding the line in her hand.
    â€œSure. Let it go.” Marjorie dropped the line overboard and watched the baits go down through the water.
    She came in with the boat and ran the second line out the same way. Each time Nick set a heavy slab of driftwood across the butt of the rod to hold it solid and propped it up at an angle with a small slab. He reeled in the slack line so the line ran taut out to where the bait rested on the sandy floor of the channel and set the click on the reel. When a trout, feeding on the bottom, took the bait it would run with it, taking line out of the reel in a rush and making the reel sing with the click on.
    Marjorie rowed up the point a little way so she would not disturb the line. She pulled hard on the oars and the boat went way up the beach. Little waves came in with it. Marjorie stepped out of the boat and Nick pulled the boat high up the beach.
    â€œWhat’s the matter, Nick?” Marjorie asked.
    â€œI don’t know,” Nick said, getting wood for a fire.
    They made a fire with driftwood. Marjorie went to the boat and brought a blanket. The evening breeze blew the smoke toward the point, so Marjorie spread the blanket out between the fire and the lake.
    Marjorie sat on the blanket with her back to the fire and waited for Nick. He came over and sat down beside her on the blanket. In back of them was the close second-growth timber of the point and in front was the bay with the mouth of Hortons Creek. It was not quite dark. The fire-light went as far as the water. They could both see the two steel rods at an angle over the dark water. The fire glinted on the reels.
    Marjorie unpacked the basket of supper.
    â€œI don’t feel like eating,” said Nick.
    â€œCome on and eat, Nick.”
    â€œAll right.”
    They ate without talking, and watched the two rods and the fire-light in the water.
    â€œThere’s going to be a moon tonight,” said Nick. He looked across the bay to the hills that were