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finished, they dashed off with their poles, and the ice was soon dotted with scouts dangling their fishing lines through the holes Rod had drilled. I wandered out to watch. The boys all sat impatiently, receiving hardly a bite while Rod pulled in fish after fish. Gordy asked him what he was using for bait. “Worms,” he replied. “But I’ve been using worms all morning,” Gordy complained, “and I haven’t had the slightest nibble. “That’s because your worms are mostly dead,” Rod told him. The boys left their lines and gathered around as Rod explained. “You see, when you pull one out of the can, it is limp and lifeless. That is because it is too cold to move. So I warm mine to bring them back to life.” With that, Rod popped one into his mouth as the boys stared wide eyed. After about a minute, he pulled it out, wriggling and writhing, and baited it onto his hook. He had barely dropped his pole into the water when the pole bent over almost double with a fish on the end. “I don’t think I want a fish all that bad,” Mort said, as he and the others returned to their poles. But some of them were willing to try anything, and Rod and I watched as a few of them reluctantly slipped worms into their own mouths before putting them on their hooks. Soon they were catching fish and they knew they had learned a big secret. But, I knew a secret they didn’t. I had seen that Rod had not really put the worm in his mouth, but he had only made it look like he had. He grinned when I asked him about it. “Oh, I don’t really need to. I just have a plastic bag of them inside my coat against my body to keep them warm. I get the same effect that 2