They made a fire in the great fireplace, and sitting around it, made baskets, and laid new plans. At noon the weather cleared; but after eating a hearty dinner, and the fatigue and excitement of the night’s adventure, the boys felt but little inclined to engage in anything that required active exertion. They lolled on the grass a while, and at length Charlie proposed that they should go a fishing. The tides being very high, the water had flowed up to the fissure in the ledge where the brook ran over. A whole school of smelts and tom-cods, taking advantage of this, had come up with the tide, and the mouth of the brook was full of them. After fishing a while, Fred Williams tied his handkerchief to four sticks, and putting some bait in it, and a stone to sink it, fastened a line to each corner, and let it down into the water. The smelts going in to eat the bait, he gradually drew it up, and, when almost at the surface, gave a quick jerk; but the water was so long filtering through the handkerchief that they all swam out.