'Well, come on if you're coming,' Dad said.
Jimmy hurried down the bank, almost falling. Dad took the lid off the Folger's coffee can, reached in, and pulled out a wriggling red worm.
'You do it like this,' Dad said, holding the hook of his own rod and reel in his right hand. 'You thread it on, head to ass or ass to head. You don't jab it through sideways, 'cause then the fish just bites off what he wants.'
Jimmy stood close and watched. The worm bunched up on the hook as Dad pushed it on. The free end flailed.
'Does it hurt it?' Jimmy asked.
'Worms ain't got nerves.' Dad took his hands away from the hook. It dangled before Jimmy's face, no longer metal, but hook-shaped flesh. 'Now do yours,' Dad said.
Jimmy laid his rod on the flat mud beside the water and sat down. He dug into the dirt in the coffee can and pulled up a worm, slimy and strong. It almost slipped away. He clutched the worm in his right hand and picked up the brass hook at the end of his line with his left.
He couldn't get the hook into the worm the way Dad had done. The worm's ass or head or whatever wouldn't stay still long enough for him to push the point of the barb into the hole. He jabbed in desperation and stuck himself in the thumb.
'Ow!' he yelled, dropping both worm and hook.
Dad picked them up and squatted beside him. 'I'll show you one more time,' he said, 'and if you don't get it right after that, we're leaving. Give me your hands.'
Jimmy held out his hands, and Dad placed the worm in his left and the hook in his right. Then Dad guided Jimmy's fingers.
'Like this,' Dad said. 'It ain't hard.'
The worm slid onto the hook as slick and easy as macaroni onto a toothpick.
In that instant, Jimmy became dizzy with a joy he had never before experienced. He didn't know what had caused it, but he didn't want it to stop, so he tried to memorize everything: the warmth of the sun on his crew-cut scalp; the coolness of the mud beneath him; Dad's rough fingers wrapped around his; and the smell of earth and blood from the worm on the hook.
