It wasn’t until after we were home again and the fish had been weighed, and Wampus’s Uncle Oscar had handed the prize rod and reel to Jibby, that he said to Jibby:
“Well, son, I’ve fished on this river a good many years, but you’ve taught me something today.”
“How to smell out fishing-holes?” Wampus wanted to know.
Uncle Oscar looked at Jibby and laughed.
“You tell them, Jibby,” he said. “Your father told me. Tell them how you smelled out the fish.”
Jibby took his nose in his fingers and wiggled it.
“About a week ago,” he said, “I happened to stick my old nose-jib in a book, and that was when I smelled out these fish. I thought perhaps I might want to try for the prize, and I heard that old Izaak Walton was a great fisherman, so I stuck my nose in his book and tried to smell out something. Izaak Walton was the father of anglers, you know, George.”
“I know,” I said, pretty cheap, because I had lent the book to Jibby, but had never read it, because it was all about English fish, and not about Mississippi River fish.
“Well,” Jibby said, “first, I asked Orpheus Cadwallader where the best fishing-holes were, up in the slough here, and how deep I ought to set my bobber for the different fish, and he told me. I thought he ought to know, because he is the caretaker here and the best fisherman I know. That’s why I went to the hole I did go to. Orpheus Cadwallader told me it was good.”
“That’s all right,” Skippy said, “but what did you smell out of that Izaak Walton book; that’s what we want to know.”
“Well, I’ll tell you,” said Jibby. “You know what I told you? I said it is just the ‘little bit more’ that makes anything the ‘most’? I knew I couldn’t fish against Wampus unless I had the ‘little bit more.’ So I went to the Izaak Walton book, and the only thing I found there that I didn’t know was scouring the worms.”
“Scouring the worms! What is that?” asked Wampus, opening his eyes pretty wide.
“Walton tells how, in his book,” said Jibby. “You dig your worms ahead of time, and put them in wet moss, in a box, and let them be there. Angleworms eat mud, you know, and they’re full of mud. If you put them in wet moss, they don’t have any mud to eat and they get clean and bright and husky. They get used to being wet, too. They get brighter in color. They don’t drown so quick when they are in the water, and they can wiggle harder and longer, and stay alive better, and the fish see them quicker and like them better.”
“Shucks!” said Wampus. “Was that it?”
“Sure, it was!” said Jibby. “I figured that your worms would wash out pale quicker than mine, and that by the middle of the afternoon they would be pretty sick worms, in a hot tin can, while mine, in a box of moss, would be cool and fresh and lively. And they were! It was as if I had live worms to fish with and you had dead ones.”
“And you got that out of a book that was written maybe a couple of hundred years ago?” I asked him.
“Sure, I did!” said Jibby. “I’ve got a nose that can smell common sense that far.”
Well, that beat us! That beat Wampus, too.
“You win!” he said. “You had us all fooled, Jibby. You deserve the prize. You’ve got a wonderful nose!”
So that was all there was to it. We all laughed, and Jibby laughed, and Wampus’s Uncle Oscar laughed. Then, all of a sudden, Wampus’s Uncle Oscar put his nose in the air and sniffed.
“Um-yum!” he said. “I’ve got a fine nose, too. I can smell fish frying, and it certainly smells good to me. Can you smell it, Jibby?”
Jibby put his nose in the air and sniffed.
“Yes, sir,” he said. “I can smell three channel catfish and four perch.”
Then he sniffed again.
“Two of the catfish are fried on one side, and the other catfish and the four perch are fried on the other side,” he said.
And that’s how Jibby was; he was a dandy. He liked to fool, but there was always something back of his fooling. This time it was a fried fish supper. So we went to wash up and have it, for we were all eating at Wampus’s house. And while Wampus was washing, he turned to Jibby and said:
“Well, Jibby, if your nose can smell out things so extra well, why don’t you give it a little more exercise and then smell out that land pirate’s treasure?”
“Maybe I will, Wampus, if you say to. You’re the Captain and the orders have to come from you,” Jibby said.
But none of us knew then how soon we were going to be a lot more excited about that land pirate’s treasure.
VII
The Tough Customer
Well, we all had a good time at dinner, and Wampus’s Uncle Oscar made a speech and gave Jibby Jones the rod and reel, and Jibby made us laugh by saying we mustn’t blame him for winning the prize, because it wasn’t his fault he had an extra good nose; he said it was his Grandfather Parmenter’s fault, that he had inherited the nose from. Then Wampus’s Uncle Oscar said that it was all right to say “nose,” but that the kind of “nose” Jibby used
