“From town?” Skippy cried. “What do you say ‘from town’ for? From all up and down the old Mississippi! From all over the United States, everywhere! Yes, and in Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and South America people go fishing, don’t they? If we are going to sell worms....” “Canned ones,” I said, “packed in cans with holes in the lids, like pepper-boxes, so the worms can breathe.” We were all getting excited--all except Jibby Jones. All Jibby said was: “Aluminum cans, because, if there are holes in the lids and the earth in the cans is moist, cans made of tin would rust.” “And, anyway,” said Wampus, jumping at that idea quick, “aluminum cans would be better than tin; they would be lighter to ship and lighter for fishermen to carry. When we get to shipping tons and tons of worms, the difference in the weight of the cans will save us hundreds of dollars in freight. And I say we ought to have a special can with a wire handle, like a lard pail, only smaller, so boys could carry cans of our worms easily when they go fishing.” “Sure! Of course, we’ll do that,” I said, “and we ought to have a patent lid--one that will come off and fit on again, like the lid of a baking-powder can.” “And with letters stamped on it,” said Skippy. “It ought to be stamped ‘Five Friends’ Mine--Best Quality Fishing Worms--Riverbank, Iowa.’” “Yes,” said Wampus, “when they were our best quality, but you don’t think we are going to throw away all the medium and small worms we get out of the mine, do you? No, sir! We’ll have three grades--Best Quality, Prime Quality, and Family Quality. They will be one dollar a can, seventy-five cents a can, and fifty cents a can.” “Except the half-size and the trial cans,” said Tad. “Yes, and except the pails of bulk worms, assorted,” said Skippy. “We’ve got to have some put up that way, and maybe some in kegs and some in barrels, for general stores in the places where they don’t catch anything but goggle-eyes and mudcats. These would be the cheapest we would sell. They would be for stores where boys would come in with their own old rusty tomato cans and say, ‘Say, mister, gimme two cents’ worth of fishing worms.’” Well, we went on planning about the worm mine that way for two or three days and we kept right on digging the tunnel out under Mosquito Hollow and timbering it up. Here and there we ran into sand, which has no worms in it, and then we shifted the direction of the tunnel a little. Jibby said the proper way was to follow the worm-veins wherever they went. CHAPTER XIII THE VIKING SHIP