the low rail and sat there cheerfully waiting. Sarelke had crept through
the water-flags until he was close to the brook and, through the clear,
gleaming blue water, watched a little fish frisking about. In a moment,
his wooden shoes and his stockings were off and one leg was in the water,
trying it: it was cold; and he felt a shiver right down his back. Ripples
played on the smooth blue and widened out to the bank. The little fish
was gone, but so was the cold; and he saw more fish, farther away: quick
now, the other leg in the water! He pulled his breeches up high and there
he stood, with the water well above his knees, peering out for fish. The
water was clear as glass; and he saw swarms of them playing, darting
swiftly up and down, to and fro like arrows: they shot past in shoals
that held together like long snakes, in among the moss and the reeds and
between the stones, winding through slits and crannies. He shouted aloud
for joy. Bertje and Wartje and the others all had their stockings off and
stood in the water bending down to look, making funnels of their hands in
the water, where it rustled in little streams between two grass-sods
through which the fish had to pass. Whenever they felt one wriggling in
their hands they yelled and screamed and sprang out of the brook to put
it into their wooden shoes, which stood on the bank, scooped full of
water. There they loitered examining those beasties from close by: those
fish were theirs now; and they would let them swim about in the big tub
at home and give them a bit of their bread and butter every day, so that
they might grow into great big pike. And now back to the runnel for more.

"Boys, I'll tell mother!" cried Horieneke.

But they did not hear and just kept on as before. Fonske had not been
able to catch one yet and his fat legs were turning blue with the cold.
In front of him stood Bertje, stooping and peering into the water, with
his hands ready to grasp; and Fonske saw such a lovely little runnel from