"Now," announced Virginia, quite unconscious of the sensations which were agitating her friends, "I think we'd best begin to get supper. It may take some time. Mary, I see there's a cook book in the kitchen. If you've made biscuits only once, it might be well for you to study up a little. Vivian can set the table, and get some lettuce from the garden. I'll rustle the wood for the fire, and get the potatoes ready. Hannah told me to bake them about an hour. Priscilla, why don't you take one of Jean's rods and follow up the creek? There are some quaking-asps in a shady place up a little way, and it wouldn't surprise me at all if you got a trout there. Use some of those little dark flies--they're good this kind of a day. Come to think of it, Jean has some already on. You might add a grasshopper or two. There'll be plenty of them hopping around. Pinch their noses and they'll keep still."
Priscilla, armed with Virginia's directions, and a total lack of experience, took the rod and went her way. Never in her life had she caught a fish, but the zest of a possible catch seized her. If she could only get one, it would be something more to tell Alden, and might elicit praise as high as the bear-trapping experience had done. She saw the quaking-asps some rods above the cabin, crawled under the wire fence, and went toward them. Something hopped out of her way. A grasshopper! She jumped, but missed him! Personally she did not care for the _feel_ of grasshoppers, and their kindred of crawly things, but if she would accomplish her purpose, she must procure one. She dropped on her knees, and began her search. There were grasshoppers in plenty, but they were of a very swift variety. Priscilla darted and dove on this side and that before she finally caught her prey. With loathing and disgust she proceeded to pinch his nose and render him helpless. She placed him awkwardly and none too securely on the hook beneath the little black fly, strode to the quaking-asps, disentangled her rod and line a dozen times, and at length managed to drop the baited hook into the creek. Then she straightened her weary form, grasped her rod firmly in her right hand and waited. The question was--should she do anything more than wait? Were one's chances of success greater if she wiggled the rod? Should one just stand still or walk back and forth, dragging the line after her?