The Adventures of Buster Bear | Page 7

fish. Now Farmer Brown's boy
learned a long time ago that to be a successful fisherman one must have
a great deal of patience, so though he didn't get a bite right away as he
had expected to, he wasn't the least bit discouraged. He kept very quiet
and fished and fished, patiently waiting for a foolish trout to take his
hook. But he didn't get so much as a nibble. "Either the trout have lost
their appetite or they have grown very wise," muttered Farmer Brown's
boy, as after a long time he moved on to the next little pool.
There the same thing happened. He was very patient, very, very patient,
but his patience brought no reward, not so much as the faintest kind of
a nibble. Farmer Brown's boy trudged on to the next pool, and there
was a puzzled frown on his freckled face. Such a thing never had
happened before. He didn't know what to make of it. All the night

before he had dreamed about the delicious dinner of fried trout he
would have the next day, and now--well, if he didn't catch some trout
pretty soon, that splendid dinner would never be anything but a dream.
"If I didn't know that nobody else comes fishing here, I should think
that somebody had been here this very morning and caught all the fish
or else frightened them so that they are all in hiding," said he, as he
trudged on to the next little pool. "I never had such bad luck in all my
life before. Hello! What's this?"
There, on the bank beside the little pool, were the heads of three trout.
Farmer Brown's boy scowled down at them more puzzled than ever.
"Somebody has been fishing here, and they have had better luck than I
have," thought he. He looked up the Laughing Brook and down the
Laughing Brook and this way and that way, but no one was to be seen.
Then he picked up one of the little heads and looked at it sharply. "It
wasn't cut off with a knife; it was bitten off!" he exclaimed. "I wonder
now if Billy Mink is the scamp who has spoiled my fun."
Thereafter he kept a sharp lookout for signs of Billy Mink, but though
he found two or three more trout heads, he saw no other signs and he
caught no fish. This puzzled him more than ever. It didn't seem possible
that such a little fellow as Billy Mink could have caught or frightened
all the fish or have eaten so many. Besides, he didn't remember ever
having known Billy to leave heads around that way. Billy sometimes
catches more fish than he can eat, but then he usually hides them. The
farther he went down the Laughing Brook, the more puzzled Farmer
Brown's boy grew. It made him feel very queer. He would have felt still
more queer if he had known that all the time two other fishermen who
had been before him were watching him and chuckling to themselves.
They were Little Joe Otter and Buster Bear.

VIII
FARMER BROWN'S BOY FEELS HIS HAIR RISE

'Twas just a sudden odd surprise Made Farmer Brown's boy's hair to
rise.
That's a funny thing for hair to do--rise up all of a sudden--isn't it? But
that is just what the hair on Farmer Brown's boy's head did the day he
went fishing in the Laughing Brook and had no luck at all. There are
just two things that make hair rise--anger and fear. Anger sometimes
makes the hair on the back and neck of Bowser the Hound and of some
other little people bristle and stand up, and you know the hair on the
tail of Black Pussy stands on end until her tail looks twice as big as it
really is. Both anger and fear make it do that. But there is only one
thing that can make the hair on the head of Farmer Brown's boy rise,
and as it isn't anger, of course it must be fear.
It never had happened before. You see, there isn't much of anything
that Farmer Brown's boy is really afraid of. Perhaps he wouldn't have
been afraid this time if it hadn't been for the surprise of what he found.
You see when he had found the heads of those trout on the bank he
knew right away that some one else had been fishing, and that was why
he couldn't catch any; but it didn't seem possible that little Billy Mink
could have eaten all those trout, and Farmer Brown's boy didn't once
think of Little Joe Otter, and so he was very, very much puzzled.
He was turning it all over in his mind and studying what it