848 GRAY LADY AND THE BIRDS 
turned and beginning to rush out of the creek like every- 
thing. Mr. Fisherman sat on a tall post that we tie the 
boats up to at night. It was close to the water, not 
where the strong current was, but a little to one side, 
where it was more still. He did pretty well for a while; 
the fish looked small, and he swallowed ’em without 
wriggling his throat so very much. 
“One thing he did was very funny; he didn’t dive 
right down from the post after the fish, but he took a 
little fly up first and then folded his wings to his sides 
and dropped right in beak first, same as we fellows do 
when we jump off the spring board dad rigged to a raft 
and then dive. I couldn’t make out whether he always 
did it, or if it was because the post was too near the water. 
“After a little, the water went down so that the post 
wasn’t near enough to the water; then what did he do 
but shift over to the bowsprit of an old oyster boat that 
was wrecked and half buried in the sand, right in the 
bank just inside the creek; this gave him a fine perch 
right over the channel. When he saw that there was 
no one about, he sort of settled down, and looking 
at him so long made me lazy, and I guess I fell asleep 
and didn’t see him dive, because the next thing I 
knew, there was the Kingfisher back on the perch, but 
he had an eel in his beak instead of a fish. 
“Say, Gray Lady, did you ever try to hold an eel in 
your fingers, without rubbing wet sand on them first? 
Well, you should have seen that bird twist and flop about. 
It was only a little eel, not any bigger than a pencil, but, 
ohmy!” And Tommy laughed heartily at the very mem- 
ory of the fray. 
