We had our spades and tin cans and Wampus rammed the blade of his spade into the ground and then yelled and began slapping himself everywhere. Tad grabbed the handle of the spade and pushed down on it and turned up a chunk of soil, and then he began yelling and slapping himself. I kicked the clod of dirt with my foot and picked up one fat worm and put it in the can, and then I yelled and began to slap myself. And Skippy did not even pick up a single worm; he just yelled and slapped and then ran for the riverbank full tilt, dragging his spade after him, and we all followed him. It was no use; the skeets were too fierce, we couldn’t stand them. Jibby Jones was sitting just where we left him, and we began scratching our ankles and rubbing our necks and faces and the backs of our hands, and saying, “Gee!” and “Whew!” and “Oh, boy!” on account of the bites. “I’ve been waiting for you to come back,” Jibby Jones said. “Well, we came back,” I said. “I guess we didn’t stay long enough for you to get homesick for us, did we?” “I didn’t notice,” Jibby said. “I’ve been thinking. I think a person ought to think when he hasn’t anything else to do. I was thinking about fishworms, and I thought it wasn’t fair for you fellows to do all the work and get all the worms when I am going to use some of them.” “Hah!” Wampus said. “I guess there aren’t going to be any worms. I wouldn’t go back to that hollow for a million dollars.” “Mosquitoes?” asked Jibby. “And, of course they are worse for me.” “Because you swell up when they bite you,” said Tad. “Not only that, but there is more of me to bite,” said Jibby. “I got more exposed surface than you fellows. More face.” That did not seem so, but he proved it was so. “On account of my nose,” he said. “Wampus has hardly any nose--it is just a nubbin--but my nose is like the jib sail of a boat. It is like a big triangle sticking out from my face. If you measure across Wampus’s face, you’ve got all the surface mosquitoes can get at, because his nose doesn’t amount to much, but, when you measure across my face and come to the nose, you’ve got to measure my nose, too. You’ve got to measure the base and altitude and hypotenuse of my nose on one side, and then measure the base and altitude and hypotenuse of the other side of my nose, and it amounts to a lot. The mosquitoes have a whole lot more nose to bite on me than on any of the rest of you.” We saw that was true and we said so. “So I thought I had better think of a way to get all the fishworms we need without getting mosquito-bit,” said Jibby, “and I did.” “How?” I asked him. “Well,” said Jibby, “the best way is to have a worm mine and mine for them.” “Mine for them!” Skippy yelled, laughing. “You go back into that hollow and try to mine! I dare you!”