"Why, how came you to go over there?" said I; for the Foy mill-pond was fully a mile distant, in a lonely place where formerly a saw-mill had stood, and where an old stone dam still held back a pond of perhaps four acres in extent. The ruins of the mill with several broken wheels and other gear were lying on the ledges below the dam; and two curiously gnarled trees overhung the bed of the hollow-gurgling stream. Alders had now grown up around the pond; and there were said to be some very large water snakes living in the chinks of the old dam. It was one of those ponds the shores of which are much infested by dragon-flies, or "devil's darn-needles," as they are called by country boys,--the legend being that with their long stiff bodies, used as darning needles, they have a mission, to sew up the mouths of those who tell falsehoods. "Oh, Kate wanted to go," replied Ellen. "We went by the old logging road through the woods from the cedar swamp. She thought we would see a turtle on that sand bank across from the old dam, if we sat down quietly and waited awhile. The turtles sometimes come out on that sand bank to sun themselves, she said. So we went over and sat down, very still, in the little path at the top of the dam wall. The sun shone down into the water. We could see the bottom of the pond for a long way out. Kate was watching the sand bank: and so was I; but after a minute or two, Theodora whispered, 'Only see those big fish!' Then we looked down into the water and saw them, great lovely fish with spots of red on their sides, swimming slowly along, all together, circling around the foot of the pond as if they were exploring. Oh, how pretty they looked as they turned; for they kept together and then swam off up the pond again. "Kate whispered that they were trout. 'But I never saw so many,' she said, 'nor such large ones before; and I never heard Tom nor any of the boys say there were trout here.' "We thought they had gone perhaps and would not come again," Ellen continued. "But in about ten minutes they all came circling back down the other shore of the pond, keeping in a school together just as when we first saw them. We sat and watched them till they came around the third time, and then Kate said, 'One of us must run home and tell the boys to come with their hooks.' I said that I would go, and I've run almost all the way. Now hurry. I'll rest here till you come. Then we will scamper back."