"Muckle, Harvey, muckle! Under your hand! Quick!" Evidently "muckle" could not be the dinner-horn, so Harvey passed over the maul, and Dan scientifically stunned the fish before he pulled it inboard, and wrenched out the hook with the short wooden stick he called a "gob-stick." Then Harvey felt a tug, and pulled up zealously.
"Why, these are strawberries!" he shouted.

"Look!" The hook had fouled among a bunch of strawberries, red on one side and white on the other--perfect reproductions of the land fruit, except that there were no leaves, and the stem was all pipy and slimy.
"Don't tech 'em! Slat 'em off.

Don't--" The warning came too late.

Harvey had picked them from the hook, and was admiring them.
"Ouch!" he cried, for his fingers throbbed as though he had grasped many nettles.
"Naow ye know what strawberry-bottom means.

Nothin' 'cep' fish should be teched with the naked fingers, dad says.