The boys looked at the mill, and helped Fred a while, and then caught fish in the mill-pond; for it was a tide-mill, though there was a brook ran into it. When the gates were open, and the tide from the sea flowed in, the fish--smelts, tom-cod, and sometimes small mackerel, called “tinkers,” came with it. When tired of fishing they went to look at the ducks. Fred had nearly a hundred ducks, that spent the greater part of their time in the mill-pond. Never did ducks have a better time than Fred’s; they had plenty of corn from the mill, and when the pond was full they fed upon the insects and little fish that live in the salt water; but when the pond became low they resorted to the brook.