"Swallers the hook!" Bunny explained. "If a fish eats the bent pin hook I can't give it back to you; can I?"

"No," said Sue slowly. "But we could get it out when we cook the fish,"

she said, after thinking about it a little while.

"Yes," agreed Bunny. "But I guess they don't cook pins in fish. Anyhow we haven't got a fire to cook with."

"Oh, well, then we'll pretend. Here's the pin, Bunny," and Sue took it from a place on her dress where, as she had said, a b.u.t.ton was off. "Try and catch a big fish with it."

Bunny had the piece of string untangled now and he bent the pin into a sort of hook. All this while the boat was slowly drifting down the river, but Bunny Brown and his sister Sue had talked so much about fishing that they had not noticed where they were going. They were not so frightened as they had been at first.

Bunny tied the bent pin on the end of his piece of string and was about to toss it over the side of the boat into the water when he happened to think.

"I'll have to have a sinker," he said to Sue. "You can't catch fish if you don't have a sinker to take the hook down to the bottom of the water. Fish only bite near the bottom. I must have a sinker."

"Oh, dear!" exclaimed Sue. "Fishing is a lot of work; isn't it, Bunny?"

"It's fun," said the little boy. "I like it, but I have to have a sinker."

"I could give you a b.u.t.ton from my dress," Sue said. "One's almost off, and I could pull it the rest of the way. Only I haven't another pin to fasten me up with. This is an old dress, anyhow. That's what makes it have one b.u.t.ton gone and another almost off," she explained.

"Never mind. Don't pull off the b.u.t.ton, Sue," Bunny said. "I guess it wouldn't be heavy enough to sink. Maybe I can find a regular sinker. Oh, yes, here's one!" he cried, as he picked up from the bottom of the boat a piece of lead. It had been dropped there when Mr. Brown, or perhaps Bunker Blue, had used the boat for fishing a few days before.

"This will be just the thing!" cried Bunny, as he fastened it to his line. "Now I can fish real," and he tossed the bent pin over the side of the drifting boat into the water. The bent pin sank out of sight, and both children watched eagerly, wondering how long it would be before they would catch a fish.

But suddenly their boat b.u.mped against something, and stopped moving.

The b.u.mp was so hard that Bunny was knocked over against Sue.

"Oh, Bunny, don't!" she exclaimed. "You hurt my arm!"

"I--I couldn't help it," Bunny said.

"Was it a fish?" asked Sue, hopefully, "Did he pull you over?"

Bunny shook his head. Nothing had taken hold of the pin-hook. Then he turned his head and looked around.

"Oh, Sue!" he cried. "We've run ash.o.r.e on an island. Now we can get out and have some fun! This is great!"

CHAPTER VIII

SUE FALLS IN

The boat, in which Bunny Brown and his sister Sue had gone adrift, had really "bunked into an island," as Bunny told about it afterward. He said "bunked," and he meant b.u.mped, for that is what the boat had done.

There were a number of islands in the river, some small and some larger, and it was at one of the larger ones that Bunny and Sue now found themselves. Their boat swung around in the shallow water, and did not move any more. It was fast aground on the edge of the island.

"Let's get out," suggested Bunny, and he did so, followed by Sue. As Bunny pulled his fish line from the water, his sister saw the dangling bent-pin hook, and cried out:

"Oh, Bunny, you didn't get a fish after all!"

"No," the little fellow answered. "I guess I can fish better from the island, anyhow. We'll fish here now, and if we catch anything we can build a fire and cook it. That is, we could if we had any matches."

"Mother told us we musn't play with fire," remarked Sue.

"That's so," her brother agreed. "Well, we can wait till we get home to cook the fish. But we've got to fasten the boat, or it may go away and leave us."

Bunny's father was in the boat business and the little fellow had often heard how needful it was to tie boats fast so they would not drift away or be taken out by the tide. So it was one of the first things he thought of when he and Sue landed on the island.

There was a rope in the front part, or bow of the rowboat, and Bunny tied one end of this rope to a tree that grew near the edge of the island.

"Now I can fish," he said.

"What can I do?" asked Sue. "I wish I had one of my dolls with me--even the old sawdust one, with the sawdust coming out. I could play house with her. What can I do, Bunny?"

"Well, you can watch me fish, and then I'll let you have a turn. If you had another pin I could make you a hook."

"Nope, I haven't anymore," and Sue looked carefully over her dress, thinking she might find another pin. But there was none.

Bunny was about to cast in the line from the sh.o.r.e of the island, near the boat, where he and Sue were standing, when he suddenly thought of something.

"Oh, I forgot! I haven't any bait on my hook!" he said. "No wonder I didn't get a bite. I'll have to get a worm, or something the fish like to eat. Come on, Sue, you can help at that--hunting for worms."

"I--I don't want to," and Sue gave a little shiver.

"You don't like to hunt worms?" asked Bunny, as if very much surprised.

"I like it--it's fun!"

"Oh, but worms--worms are so--so squiggily!" stammered Sue. "They make me feel so ticklish in my toes."

"You don't pick up worms in your toes!" cried Bunny. "You pick 'em up in your hands!"

"I know," and Sue smiled at her brother, "but they are so squiggily that they make me feel ticklish away down to my toes, anyhow."

"All right," Bunny agreed. "I'll pick up the worms, but you can have a turn fishing just the same."

"Thank you," answered Sue.

Mrs. Brown had taught the children to be kind and polite to each other, just as well as to strangers and to "company." Though of course Bunny Brown and his sister Sue had little troubles and "spats" and differences, now and then, just like other children.

Bunny began looking for worms, and he dug in the soft dirt of the island, near the edge of the water, with a stick. But either there were no worms there, or Bunny did not dig deep enough for them, for he found none.

"Guess I'll have to fish without any bait," he said, after a while. But, as I suppose you all know, fish hardly ever bite on an empty hook, especially when it is made from a bent pin; so, after he had dangled the line in the water for quite a while, Bunny said:

"Here, Sue. It's your turn now. Maybe you'll have better luck than I had."

"Maybe there aren't any fish in this river."