CHAPTER V. 

THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT. 

Marco took dinner that day at the tavern alone, and, after dinner, he carried a cup of tea to Forester,--but Forester was asleep, and so he did not disturb him. 

In the afternoon he went out to play. He amused himself, for half an hour, in rambling about the tavern yards and in the stables. There was a ferocious-looking bull in one of the yards, chained to a post, by means of a ring through his nose. Marco looked at the bull a few minutes with great interest, and then began to look about for a long stick, or a pole, to poke him a little, through the fence, to see if he could not make him roar, when, instead of a pole, his eye fell upon a boy, who was at work, digging in a corner of a field near, behind the barn. 

The boy's name was Jeremiah. He was digging for worms for bait. He was going a fishing. Marco determined to go with him. 

Jeremiah furnished Marco with a hook and a piece of sheet lead to make a sinker of, and Marco had some twine in his pocket already; so that he was soon fitted with a line. But he had no pole. Jeremiah said that he could cut one, on his way down to the river, as they would pass through a piece of woods which had plenty of tall and slender young trees in it. 

He succeeded in getting a pole in this manner, which answered very well; and then he and Jeremiah went down to the river. They stood upon a log on the shore, and caught several small fishes, but they got none of much value, for nearly half an hour. At last, Jeremiah, who was standing at a little distance from Marco, suddenly exclaimed: 
What was he digging for?
. He was digging for worms for bait.