A S P I N W A L L ISLAND 
 
 \^ 
 
 
 i 
 
 a*- 
 
 ■ "TT^^ 
 
 
 FRED WARNER SHIBLEY 
 
CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PS 3537.H62Z5 
 
 Aspinwall Islancl. 
 
 3 1924 021 689 538 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tiiis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924021689538 
 
ASPINWALL ISLAND 
 
ASPINWALL 
 ISLAND 
 
 BY 
 
 FRED WARNER SHIBLEY 
 
 'TcHnorrow is not; yesterday is spent; 
 T(hday, O Sadi, take thyhearfs content." 
 
 PKIVATELY PKINTED 
 NEW YORK 
 ' 1916 
 
TO MY WIFE 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I Shaebot Lake 
 
 n About Friends and Friendships 
 ni The Winkles and the "Woods 
 IV Tom Johnson and Rover 
 
 V Wilton Cemetery 
 VI The Woodchuck . 
 vn The Blue Squab . 
 VIII The Barking Snakes 
 IS Some Good Things to Eat 
 
 X A Sharbotian Night 
 XI The Children of the Lake 
 xn Winter 
 
 PAaE 
 
 3 
 
 30 
 
 47 
 
 63 
 
 74 
 
 89 
 
 96 
 
 109 
 
 125 
 
 143 
 
 154 
 
 165 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 The Cottage from the North . . frontispiece 
 John Antoine facing page 8 
 
 The Old Boat House ... 
 
 21 
 
 The Boat House .... " 
 
 " 22 
 
 Making Chowder .... " 
 
 31 
 
 The Cottage 
 
 40 
 
 F.W. S 
 
 78 
 
 Elizabeth " 
 
 89 
 
 Amelia and the Nasturtiums " 
 
 93 
 
 "Some Pike" 
 
 " 126 
 
 The Sharbotina and the Peter 
 
 
 Pan " 
 
 " 130 
 
 Looking Westward ... " 
 
 " 143 
 
ASPINWALL ISLAND 
 
CHAPTEE I 
 
 SHAKBOT LAKE 
 
 rilHIS is the story of an island in a lake of 
 J- spring water, of flowers and trees, of fish 
 and birds which think and reflect, of myriad 
 tireless insects, of a sky revealing each day and 
 each night a new picture, of friends and friend- 
 ships, of an Indian whose poise is that of a man 
 delighting in his manhood and other rustic peo- 
 ple whose lives are not keyed to excitement, but 
 who love and appreciate sunshine and fresh air. 
 Aspinwall Island is the gem of ninety islands 
 in Sharbot Lake, a body of water of a super- 
 ficial area of about thirty square miles, neither 
 long nor round, resembling most the body of a 
 devil-fish, all its curving legs and tentacles 
 being bays feeliag their way into the land. This 
 lake lies in the crest of the divide between the 
 St. Lawrence and the Ottawa. Its general char- 
 acteristics give one the impression that it is the 
 crater of a volcano of the Laurentian period, 
 for its boulder shores pour down into it just as 
 if they had been melted rock at one time and 
 
 C33 
 
cooled while still flowing. The islands appear 
 to have been volcanic cones. 
 
 What a devil's hole it must have been in those 
 days which were ancient history when the first 
 protoplasm crawled from the sea and inhaled 
 a soul! 
 
 But now our mother Nature has clothed the 
 rocks in greater part with soil, and trees grow 
 everywhere, grow spontaneously as to the 
 manner born and crowd upward to get their 
 heads into the sunshine, a great variety of 
 trees, fragrant, graceful, musical. 
 
 The islands stand up to their necks in water, 
 many with barely their noses out. They are the 
 places of little trees and flowers and mosses. 
 These islands lie about in the lake promiscu- 
 ously, as a rule, but in the southeastern end 
 of the lake, where the shore sweeps in a grand 
 curve like that of a scimeter and the water is 
 very deep, so deep that most of the early islands 
 have been beheaded by the centuries' wash of 
 the waves and have become only shoals, there 
 lies Aspinwall, the gem island, about three acres 
 in extent, a rock clothed like an opera lady, 
 beautifully gowned where covered, a rock of 
 many indentations, permitting several little 
 bays to snuggle in its embrace. 
 
 In a drawer in my desk is a parchment 
 stamped with a large red seal and displaying 
 
an array of red ribbon, proclaiming that her 
 Majesty, Victoria, Queen of Great Britain and 
 Ireland, grants this Island to me and my heirs 
 or assig-ns forever. I delight in that word 
 "grants," for it would be ridiculous in me to 
 think of owning this Island. There are so many 
 other owners— I should say there are not less 
 than two hundred birds that make it their sum- 
 mer home each year. There are countless fish 
 that play about its shore, knowing no other habi- 
 tation. There is now and then a ground-hog 
 who claims squatter's rights and many a squir- 
 rel and mouse. 
 
 But her late Imperial Majesty did grant me 
 the proprietary right of domicile on this Island 
 and as a living being I have the right of sharing 
 the Island with the trees and birds, so I have a 
 sort of partnership ia it which is participated in 
 by my wife and the many good friends who loaf 
 with us there in the summer months. 
 
 If one were to think otherwise as to this ques- 
 tion of vested interest, the west wind would 
 mock him and the north wind would jeer at his 
 pretensions. They come roaring across the 
 Island every now and then, roistering, bullying, 
 contemptuous, and sometimes positively insult- 
 ing. The lightning, moreover, serves notice on 
 sundry occasions that it has its eye on this 
 Island and is no respecter of species. 
 
But if, after all this, one were still inclined 
 to delude himself with the selfish thought of 
 possession, he would lose conceit in his sole 
 ownership if he were to visit the Island as I do 
 for a day or so in the springtime, generally 
 about the middle of May. 
 
 I am always eager to see the Island after the 
 long winter in the feverish, noisy city, and my 
 heart swells as it comes into sight, vividly green 
 in the heavy yellow humid sunshine peculiar to 
 Nature when she is in the mother mood. 
 
 As I step on the Island, a thousand infantile 
 flying things rise up from the grass, disturbed 
 in their ecstatic fluttering. Eobins scold and 
 teeter- tail snipe shout to their mates, "Beware 
 the man!" I am offended at this unfriend- 
 liness, I the owner, but soon the birds quiet 
 down, seeing I am a harmless being careful of 
 my footsteps. I ascend to the cottage with its 
 windows and doors covered with heavy storm 
 shields, and seating myself on a rustic bench on 
 the east piazza, look about me, my senses re- 
 laxed to catch the sweet smells and sounds. I 
 am made aware that there are myriad millions 
 of living creatures on the Island, born there 
 most of them, and most of them to die there. It 
 is their natal place, their home. And they are 
 all busy going about the work of the day, each 
 at its own avocation, running, jumping, crawl- 
 
ing, flying, singing, cheeping, stridulating, or 
 simply breathing, playing each its part in the 
 great drama and symphony. 
 
 I look up at the eaves and exclaim, "Where 
 did those thousands of spiders come from?" 
 There they go spinning their webs in the cor- 
 nice, perfectly at home. And those swallows! 
 Have they no respect for my rights and my 
 pocket-book, building their nests in the towers 
 and ruining the nice new paint? But hark! 
 what is the trouble over there in the shrubbery 
 at my left ? It is a cat-bird seated on the sway- 
 ing branch of a choke-cherry bush. Bless my 
 soul, if the bird is not giving me a tongue lash- 
 ing! "Who the deuce are you and what are you 
 doing here fifteen feet from my nest?" it scolds. 
 I whistle at it and it flies away in high dudgeon. 
 
 Then I turn my eyes to the great boulder 
 which is the pride of the Island, one of Nature 's 
 masterpieces in landscape gardening, for I am 
 aware that I am being stared at by a pair of 
 particularly bright eyes. I smile and nod to 
 the possessor of those eyes. It is my friend, 
 the woodchuck. 
 
 In the basswood tree, shaped like the Mahomr 
 etan Tree of Happiness in the picture books, 
 immediately in front of the cottage, a dozen 
 warblers are singing unblushingly the most pas- 
 sionate of love songs, and I look for the pretty 
 
 in 
 
creatures to whom these songs are sung. There 
 is one in the maple tree, preening herself, a 
 gray wren, hearing every note but seemingly 
 intent upon nothing but insect catching. "You 
 are a sly minx," I say to myself as I observe 
 her, "but I wager you adore every feather in 
 the plume of your lover. ' ' 
 
 Then I light my pipe and drift into dreams, 
 for I am very happy even if I am only one of the 
 myriad proprietors of Aspinwall Island. They 
 are all my very dear friends, these little people, 
 and I would not willingly destroy the life of one 
 of them. I have no enmity even to the spiders. 
 They do not know it, but this colossal being they 
 see seated on the piazza is a very soft-hearted 
 fellow, who has never shot anything but a water 
 snake since he was a boy, who shivers when he 
 hears the dying slap of a fish in the box, who 
 genuinely believes that every living child of 
 nature has an inalienable right to life, liberty, 
 and the pursuit of happiness. 
 
 I am aroused from my reveries by the ripple 
 of a paddle in the water and I look up to see 
 John Antoine rounding the break-water in his 
 "dug-out." I rise quickly and go down to the 
 water to greet him. 
 
 "Hello, John!" I cry joyously. 
 
 "Well?" he drawls slowly. 
 
 We have not seen each other for six months. 
 
J o n N A N T n I N K 
 
He is a Chippewa Indian, my guide, my gar- 
 dener, my woods companion, my neighbor and 
 my friend. 
 
 The faintest suggestion of a smile creeps into 
 his eyes as I shake his hand. 
 
 "How is everybody and everything?" I 
 inquire. 
 
 ' ' Not too bad, ' ' he replies. ' ' And the wife ? ' ' 
 he asks in turn. "Is she well?" 
 
 "Fine," I reply. "She sends you her kind 
 regards. ' ' 
 
 Then John and I walk soberly about the 
 Island esamining the grass to see how the fer- 
 tilizer has affected it, inspecting the new trees 
 he has set out and the flower beds he has 
 planted. 
 
 "The Island is looking great, John," I say 
 with enthusiasm. "You have taken good care 
 of it." 
 
 "Yes?" he replies simply, with a rising ac- 
 cent. 
 
 But I know he is delighted at my pleasure, 
 for he loves the Island even as I do. It is the 
 apple of his eye. There is not a dead limb to 
 be seen anywhere, not a floating stick on the 
 shore. Everything is neat as a pin. No tent 
 worms are to be seen in the trees. He has 
 guarded the Island as if it were a garden in 
 Paradise. 
 
 in 
 
John goes home after a while and I eat my 
 lunch in the doorway of the boat house, seated 
 in the sunshine, and incidentally I feed Charley 
 and Willie, two rock bass that live under the 
 boat house and have resided there for years. 
 They line up side by side, about eighteen inches 
 under water, and watch me, like two bull-pups, 
 eager to spring at each morsel cast on the 
 water. Charley is undershot and easily dis- 
 tinguishable among his mates. Willie is just 
 an ordinary fellow, but his friend's chosen com- 
 panion, perhaps his mate for all I know. 
 
 Having finished my lunch I drop off to sleep 
 lulled by the harmony of the insects and aided 
 to unconsciousness by the soporific fragrance 
 of the air. 
 
 So much for one of my days on Aspinwall 
 Island in May. Wonderful days those— breed- 
 ers of charming thoughts ! 
 
 I think I love the country and especially lone- 
 some places so well because I spent my entire 
 childhood on a farm far from the main road 
 and twenty miles from the nearest city. I never 
 saw a railroad until I was twelve and I did not 
 ride on a train until I was seventeen. I grew 
 up among the mysteries of Nature. Horses, 
 cows, sheep, pigs, and dogs were my fellows and 
 my friends. They knew me as I knew them. 
 The voices of the forest stimulated my imagi- 
 
 CIO] 
 
nation, and as a child I came insensibly to take 
 a large view of things, for I was surrounded by- 
 immensity. The entire horizon was presented 
 daily to my view and at night when I brought 
 home the cows I would sit on the fence on the 
 hill back of the farm and survey the heavens, 
 wondering and imagining, thinking of the stars 
 and the children who lived in the stars, watch- 
 ing the meteors flash across the Milky Way, half 
 believing they were souls returning to God, as 
 Hans Christian Andersen had told me in his 
 story of "The Poor Little Match Girl." 
 
 I saw and came to somewhat of a conception 
 of the forces of Nature working in the soil. I 
 dug into the earth with my hands and watched 
 the sprouts develop on the potatoes planted as 
 seed. I observed the bees carrying pollen from 
 one flower to another. I knew the ways of nest- 
 ing things and the habits of those creatures that 
 burrowed in the ground. I learned to distin- 
 guish trees by the sounds they made when the 
 breeze fluttered their leaves. Night after night 
 I have lain awake and listened to the noises of 
 Nature, guessing at their meaning. I had a 
 shrewd idea what hens and ducks talked about 
 and what pigs were saying when they grunted 
 to each other. And I never believed, even when 
 a very little boy, the stories folks told me in 
 Sunday School about Heaven and Hell and 
 
what happened to good people and what to bad. 
 It did not sound natural to me. I was never 
 attracted by the idea of a Heaven above the 
 clouds with gold streets and jasper walls, where 
 I was to be dressed all in white and play a harp 
 before the throne for ever and ever. I did not 
 know how to play a harp and had never seen a 
 harp. What would I look like, I thought, stand- 
 ing in line with a lot of angels, in a flowing white 
 robe, playing a harp all day long? And Hell 
 —that was ridiculous. I knew the Devil was a 
 bogey man to scare bad boys with. The idea 
 of floating about in a lake of fire and brimstone 
 for all eternity, never being consumed but al- 
 ways suffering,— that was so fiendish and ab- 
 surd, that I rebelled at even the suggestion of it. 
 I knew God as He manifested Himself in Na- 
 ture, and I stood iu awe of Him and respected 
 Him, believing in Him actually, for I was aware 
 of His presence. I always thought of Him as a 
 good God, genuinely solicitous for the welfare 
 of every living thing. I believed He felt sorry 
 just as I did when the frost killed the early 
 vegetables, when the grasshoppers destroyed 
 the foliage, and when the birds or the sheep or 
 the little pigs died. I used to imagine He was 
 in the sun, and night after night I would sit on 
 the milk-stand which projected into the road 
 and look at the sun go down, feeling pretty cer- 
 
tain that no one but God Himself could produce 
 such a wealth of color. Instinctively I became 
 a sun-worshipper, and I have never lost com- 
 pletely this infatuation. In fact I have made 
 little progress in religious development. I am 
 the same Pantheist I was when I was five years 
 old and I have never learned a thing more about 
 the Creator than I conceived as a child. 
 
 Perhaps also I love the country and old- 
 fashioned people because I have had so consid- 
 erable an experience with city people and urban 
 life. I will criticize neither. However, I will 
 teU this little story to illustrate the other man's 
 point of view. 
 
 A friend of mine, a student of life, a thinker 
 and a philosopher, born and raised in New 
 York City, a man who had always lived in that 
 city, at the earnest solicitation of his wife and 
 a group of his most iutimate personal friends 
 consented to spend two weeks at a summer hotel 
 on a lake in southwestern Maine. One day he 
 and I were sitting on the piazza in the sunshine 
 enjoying a smoke and looking across the lake 
 to the Presidential range, fifty miles away, ris- 
 ing grandly against the western sky. A boy was 
 driving a mmiber of cows over the causeway 
 that divided the lake immediately before us. 
 Young men and women loitered on the boat- 
 landing in a picturesque group. Occasionally 
 
 ni33 
 
the strong, clear note of a meadow lark rippled 
 in the lazy sununer air. 
 
 Suddenly my friend arose from his chair, 
 spread out his arms and cried, "My God, what 
 a silence ! Oh, for the noise of Broadway ! A 
 day more of this will be the death of me. ' ' 
 
 There is no argument in such a case. Every 
 man must be true to his own nature, but never- 
 theless I maintain that David, the shepherd 
 boy, singing his songs on the hillside while his 
 sheep fed in the valley below him, was happier 
 than Solomon seated on the high throne in his 
 cedar palace, cloyed by the sensuous luxuries of 
 life, writing on his waxen tablets that all was 
 vanity and vexation of spirit. 
 
 I look at it this way. As far as we know, 
 we have only this one life to live and our days 
 are short at the best. It is a wonderful thing 
 to be alive and marvellous to possess an intelli- 
 gence that can conceive even in a meager way 
 God and His Universe. Like the poor, sick wo- 
 man in the parable, if we can only come to touch 
 the hem of His garment, we have gained much. 
 We are wonderful beings. We all glory in our- 
 selves now and then, whether we admit it or 
 not. It is so good .to hear, to feel, to smell, to 
 taste. Every twenty-four hours we experience 
 a miracle when we sleep and when we wake. I 
 have found myself countless times watching my 
 
 ni4i 
 
fingers move, studying the play of my muscles, 
 rejoicing in my perfect health. I have sent 
 thought orders to my nerves and seen them obey 
 in a flash. I have said to my toes, ' ' Move, ' ' and 
 instantly they have moved, while I laughed 
 aloud. We are the highest expressions of life. 
 Our bodies are chemical combinations, perfectly 
 harmonious in cooperation. Our souls are a 
 part of Grod Himself. I know this one thing 
 absolutely. I am not modest in my assertion. 
 On the contrary, I am vain of it. Whatever I 
 am, I am indestructible. My soul can do no 
 wrong, for it is God-like. 
 
 Eealizing such a sublime fact, it seems to 
 me that we will show greatest wisdom if we 
 come to a knowledge of ourselves as soon as 
 possible while we are still young, so that instead 
 of allowing our senses the idiotic sway of self- 
 command, we can place these delightful senses 
 under the control of our souls so that their plea- 
 sure will be increased a thousandfold. 
 
 Any fool can look at the ocean, but only a 
 Swinburne can conceive it, revel in its mys- 
 teries, mix it with his nature, just as the great 
 old masters played with colors, like gods mak- 
 ing sunsets. 
 
 Therefore if it is true that it is good to 
 extract the last drop of honey from the comb of 
 life, how can we best proceed about it 1 
 
 ni53 
 
It is so easy to talk about things, while per- 
 formance is so difficult. 
 
 Let us look at the sordid side of our lives, the 
 three meals a day, the morning paper and the 
 evening paper, the journey down-town to busi- 
 ness and the journey home again at night, the 
 worries and the cares, the wondering if we can 
 make money enough to meet our expenses, the 
 eternal worry of clothes and boots and gloves 
 and hats, the going to the play and the boredom 
 of the after-theater supper, the bad taste in the 
 mouth in the morning, the examination of oilr 
 teeth to see whether they are holding their own, 
 the travail of spirit over thinning and graying 
 hair, the monotony of the days, the grind, the 
 endless grind and the hopelessness of ever get- 
 ting ahead. "It is horrible," we cry many 
 times. 
 
 And yet, outdoors there is the same old yellow 
 sun. There is the morning breeze coming in 
 from the sea. The park is aflame with flowers. 
 "God 's in His Heaven. All 's well with the 
 world. ' ' 
 
 What 's the trouble? 
 
 The answer is very simple, but even if one 
 came back from the dead and told us, we would 
 not believe. 
 
 ' ' Consider the lilies of the field— they toil not, 
 neither do they spin, yet I say unto you that 
 
 CIS] 
 
Solomon in all Ms glory was not arrayed like 
 one of these. ' ' 
 
 We don't want to be like lilies of the field. 
 We want the sordid luxuries of life. We want 
 to be rich, to be grand, to be idle. We are by 
 nature mentally and physically lazy. We want 
 excitement, so we may not think. We want to 
 be amused, to be feted, to be considered great 
 people. We are vain. We are absurd. 
 
 Did not some old thinker say far back in the 
 story of mankind that man made a mess of the 
 idle life of an aristocrat among animals and was 
 driven forth from the zoological collection to 
 become a man by earning his bread in the sweat 
 of his brow? 
 
 No man can be happy who does not work. No 
 man can think sanely who does not work. All 
 these new-thought people, these anarchists and 
 social rebels, are lazy men and women who yelp 
 like curs for the mean satisfaction of yelping. 
 
 Play is the reward of labor. And rest! 
 What a delightful sensation is rest! No one 
 can enjoy it who has not toiled. 
 
 I remember once when I was a little boy going 
 out to the corn-field one day to watch the men, 
 for I was lonesome, I suppose. I climbed the 
 rail fence and, seated thereon, watched Wilse 
 Bailey and Sime Snider, our two hired men, hoe 
 corn. As they came opposite me, they paused, 
 
leaning on their hoes, and each placed a hand 
 instinctively in the smaU of- his back. 
 
 "WHse," said Sime thoughtfuUy, "what 
 wonld you do if you had a thousand dollars?" 
 
 "I 'd jes' set down and rest," Wilse gravely 
 replied. 
 
 It is this idea of rest that makes the story of 
 Heaven so attractive to many good people. 
 
 Poverty is considered a curse in this world, 
 but nevertheless it is the scratching of the wolf 
 at the door that arouses man to thought; and 
 men and women have got to think if they are 
 going to discover and understand the rare 
 beauties in their natures that only await charm- 
 ing into vitality. 
 
 Poverty, labor, rest, thought ! There is a Joy 
 which, like the fairy spirit A riel in ' ' The Tem- 
 pest," is the slave of each. We need not go so 
 far as the good Saint Francis in the glorifica- 
 tion of poverty, but at no time in my life, even 
 when the drudgery of the days palled on me, 
 have I regretted the poverty of my childhood 
 and youth, for in those days I learned to want 
 greatly, to yearn for leisure, to appreciate even 
 a little progress and meager pleasure. I was a 
 man grown and of fixed habits before I came to 
 know satiety in any form, and then I found 
 what I had dreamed was charming to be stupid 
 and unattractive. 
 
 CIS] 
 
How often we hear the expression, "I never 
 want my son or daughter to work as hard as 
 I have and endure the privations I did." The 
 people who talk like that do not think. Any 
 system that attempts to improve on Nature is a 
 bad system, and one that is bound to breed 
 unhappiness. And just as poverty is good in 
 the early years of one's life, so is labor good 
 also. This is a truism demonstrated beyond the 
 possibility of discussion. Pie who tries to elimi- 
 nate labor from his life is a fool. The wise man, 
 when he has risen above the need of labor, seeks 
 labor, for he knows it to be one of his best 
 friends. If he has become wealthy by the work 
 of his hands, he seeks mental labor, or if his 
 brains only have been the means of his success, 
 we find him craving a farm where he can work 
 with his hands. 
 
 Aspinwall Island, beautiful as it is, would 
 mean little to me if I could find nothing there to 
 keep me busy. When I was a growing boy, I 
 was as lazy as the traditional white dog. I hated 
 physical labor ; but now that I am growing old, 
 I delight most in doing the work of a hired man. 
 I love to tinker around, to make concrete walks, 
 to handle stone, to plant trees, to dig the earth, 
 to chop wood, to polish the motor boats, to 
 scrub and scour, to paint piazza chairs and 
 flag poles, to water the grass and the flowers, 
 
 CIS] 
 
to keep going, doing odds and ends of things, 
 improving, making more beautiful, if possible, 
 this charming spot. 
 
 In the morning I arise at six, and donning a 
 bath-robe, walk down to the lake in my bare feet 
 over the cold, wet lawn and plunge into the deep 
 clear water, which is always cool. After a vig- 
 orous rub down, I do my exercises on the break- 
 water. It 's great there in the sharp morning 
 air, rain or shine, July or September. Then, 
 still barefooted, I cross the Island to the pump 
 house, start the gasoline engine, turn on the 
 sprinklers, while the robins shout for joy, and 
 all the other birds welcome me with undeserved 
 adulation. 
 
 I light the fire in the sitting-room as I pass 
 through, just to take the chill off, and because 
 I love to hear the fire crack and snap while I 
 am shaving and finishing my toilet. Having 
 dressed, I walk out on the piazza, inhaling the 
 savory odor of bacon and eggs on the way, look 
 out over the lake to the east where the sun is 
 once more squandering his wealth for the joy of 
 it, look up toward the village westward to see 
 if Larry is coming down in the motor boat with 
 the mail, say "Hello!" to everybody who has 
 so far shown himself or herself, rub my hands 
 and simply feel bully. 
 
 After breakfast, which is usually eaten in the 
 
 n20] 
 
sun room at the east corner of the piazza, the 
 first business of the day is to get the guests 
 started off fishing with John. I seldom go. 
 There are so many other things to do, puttery 
 things, and as I have said, I delight to putter. 
 Perhaps Larry and I take the fast boat and 
 shoot up to the village on some errand, or we 
 haul sand for concrete in some building opera- 
 tion we have on hand. "We are always building, 
 renovating, reconstructing. Two years ago, 
 after we had completed the pump house and 
 piped water over most of the Island, we felt 
 that there was nothing more to do. Aspinwall 
 Island was perfect. Larry boasted of the com- 
 pleteness of things. There was no possibility 
 of extra work in sight. The following year 
 Larry sat in the door of the boat house most 
 of the summer and read magazines. I yawned 
 and thought. In 1915 nothing could hold me. 
 I yearned for labor and the excitement of build- 
 ing operations. So we removed the old boat 
 house to the north end of the Island on a foun- 
 dation in the water that John Badore and Larry 
 and I had constructed, a heavy, lasting piece of 
 work of which we are proud. "We went down to 
 the woods, cut the timber, floated it to the Island, 
 built a crib and filled it with stone, work war- 
 ranted to reduce any undue waist measurement 
 and to make the noonday meal hour something 
 
to be looked forward to. Then we built the new 
 boat house. We tore the cover from the break- 
 water and replaced it with eighteen inches of 
 concrete. That break-water was a glutton for 
 Portland cement. Larry hauled sand and ce- 
 ment, punt load after punt load, until it became 
 a joke and he gibed at the endlessness of the job. 
 The contractors, of course, built the concrete 
 piers and the boat house itself with its great 
 fireplace, but John and Larry and I were mason 
 tenders about in the order named. It was not 
 in Larry's contract, but his imagination was 
 excited by the new boat house, and he became 
 a hero, hauling materials and men, standing 
 around, watching things until the ice froze over 
 the lake and the contractors quit. Now a two- 
 story boat house on concrete piers, 32 feet by 
 32 feet, two stories in height, with a fireplace and 
 chimney of the first order, is some public works, 
 as we term it on the Island ; but the building lust 
 possessed me, and we dug a big cesspool, buried 
 it under a flower bed, put in a bath-room, hot 
 and cold water all over the cottage, repainted 
 the cottage and the other buildings, constructed 
 a concrete hot-bed and three or four concrete 
 landing steps here and there, and prepared to 
 finish things up early in the spring— a very orgy 
 of building, you will say, why not spread it out 
 thinner ? Nature is a determined destructional- 
 
 [;22:] 
 
ist. Lightning might destroy the big flag pole 
 or ice wreck the break-water. Something will 
 surely happen and there will be plenty of things 
 to do. So I look into the future with pleasant 
 anticipations, knowing that I shall always find 
 so much work ahead of me that I shall never get 
 a chance to spend the summer anywhere else; 
 and although this is a selfish thought, I chew it 
 with satisfaction. 
 
 For labor, common manual labor, is delightful 
 not only as a change after tedious office work, 
 but simply because of itself. 
 
 To illustrate this I will tell you of the time 
 when John Antoine and I transplanted tte pine 
 tree. This was on a day when our guests chose 
 to go motor-boating with Larry instead of fish- 
 ing with John, possibly because it was very 
 warm and the lake was like a mirror. Anyhow, 
 John had nothing to do and I conceived the idea 
 of transplanting one of the beautifully shaped 
 pine trees I had spotted on a little island along 
 the southern shore of the lake. This idea came 
 into my mind naturally, because I had read in 
 a magazine only a few days before that the time 
 to transplant evergreen trees was in late Au- 
 gust, and we were now enjoying the last days 
 of that month. 
 
 I suggested it to John, and as usual, he was 
 ready to fall into line. He showed considerable 
 
interest, moreover, owing to the fact that he 
 had not had very good luck with the pine trees 
 he had transplanted in the spring. 
 
 "You see, John, ' ' I said to him, as we chugged 
 southward in the Peter Pan, towing the punt, 
 "the fellow says that in August or early Sep- 
 tember the sap of a pine tree is resting in the 
 roots. It 's through with its season's business. 
 We catch it asleep, so to speak, and are not so 
 apt to shock its sensibilities as earlier in the 
 year. We will try this theory out, and to give 
 it a good chance will be particular to dig up each 
 root carefully and transplant the tree exactly as 
 it now sits." 
 
 "That sounds sensible to me," John replied. 
 
 When we approached our destination, John 
 and I fooled away fifteen minutes studjdng the 
 lay of the deep rocks in the vicinity of the 
 island, for the water was so clear we could see 
 to a great depth. It 's worth knowing where 
 these sunken boulders are when you are fishing 
 for black bass. Then John gave me a disserta- 
 tion on moss formations while I filled my pipe 
 and smoked. This took up another quarter of 
 an hour. However, we were in no hurry, for it 
 smelled good down there on that little pine- 
 covered island, and the moss was as soft as a 
 hair mattress. Once seated on it, we were held 
 by the restful charm of it. John was in one of 
 
 1:243 
 
Ids rare talkative moods. He never claims to 
 know a thing positively; he just wonders if it 
 is so. He told me that six deer entered the lake 
 near this island the previous autumn, that "Wall 
 Commodore and three friends were stationed 
 on the runways on the other side of the lake 
 where the deer were bound to come out, that the 
 deer did not come out where they were bound to 
 come out, and that Wall and his friends never 
 got a crack at one of them. "Would you be- 
 lieve it?" 
 
 ' ' Could you hit a deer on the other shore with 
 a bullet from here ? " I asked. 
 
 "It would largely depend on how badly we 
 needed meat," John replied gravely. "That 
 makes a powerful lot of difference in my 
 shooting." Then he added with a sigh, "That 
 must have been an awful disappointment to 
 Wall and his friends." 
 
 I saw he was beginning to brood over the 
 perverseness of those six deer not coming out 
 where they were bound to come out, and in 
 order to change the subject I suggested that we 
 had better explore the little island so as to select 
 the most perfect pine tree. This was agreeable 
 to John, and presently we agreed to confer our 
 favor on one particular tree which was as slen- 
 der and graceful as a young girl. It was about 
 six inches in diameter at the base. There were 
 
 [:25:] 
 
no rocks near it and it seemed to ns that this 
 was the tree we wanted to adorn the lawn of 
 Aspinwall Island. 
 
 So we began to dig, not with spade or pick, 
 but with our fingers, seeking to trace out the 
 main roots of this maiden pine tree. My gloves 
 lasted only a few minutes and I discarded them. 
 John dug like a dog after a bone, his lean dark 
 fingers tracing the slender thread-like roots 
 which ran along the surface of the earth not 
 deeper anywhere than a few inches but inter- 
 laced with the humus in a tenacious way. After 
 we had traced the fia-st root about eight feet, I 
 said carelessly to John, "How far does the root 
 of a smaU pine tree generally run?" "Well, 
 you see, ' ' John replied, ' ' generally it makes up 
 its mind to go to the lake. It likes water. It 
 ain't its nature to dig for water, so it just 
 travels. When it travels so far and don't 
 arrive at the water it gets disgusted and stops, 
 but it always appears to be a-going and you 
 never can tell when it will tire out. Now this 
 root, for instance, ain't no mind to quit. We 
 ain't anywhere near the end of it, it seems." I 
 rested awhile and gazed suspiciously at the lit- 
 tle maiden tree. I thought it possible that the 
 transplanting of a six-inch pine tree might not 
 be as romantic as it had first appeared to be. 
 Then it was very warm on this miniature island. 
 
 1:263 
 
It was true that the air was fragrant and the 
 odor of the humus in which we were clawing 
 particularly so, but nevertheless I wiped per- 
 spiration from my brow with a sigh, rolled up 
 the sleeves of my shirt and went at it agaiu. 
 
 John stopped after a bit to inquire if I had 
 seen, the last year or so, the big turtle that lives 
 in the deep water off the southeast point of 
 Burnt Island. 
 
 I replied that I had not and took occasion to 
 rub a kink from my back. 
 
 "That turtle," said John, slowly, "is a mys- 
 tery to me. He was here ia Pete Charles' day, 
 and Pete himself told me that Francis Sharbot 
 was the first man who told him that the turtle 
 was a-Uving off Burnt Island. Now, you know 
 Francis Sharbot was an old man when I was a 
 little boy and that 's over sixty years ago. That 
 turtle must be powerful aged. ' ' 
 
 At the expiration of half an hour we had the 
 first root with aU its collateral fibers free and 
 clear and we took a rest. 
 
 We made better progi'ess on the next root, 
 but when we came to the east root we soon real- 
 ized that it was some traveller. 
 
 ' ' By goUy ! ' ' John exclaimed, ' ' this chap has 
 made up his mind to see where the sun comes 
 up," and to our shame we became disgusted 
 with the sunrise voyager and broke it off. 
 
At five 'clock we were still clawing and our 
 hands were a sight. Every nail on every finger 
 was a ruin. But we stuck at it, soaked in per- 
 spiration, our backs aching and our knees in- 
 flamed. 
 
 Finally the maiden pine tree swayed free of 
 the entangling humus. We tied her hair roots 
 up in a nice curl and laid her gently in the punt. 
 I told John that for twenty-five cents I would 
 plunge into the lake, clothes, watch and all, I 
 was so hot, but he refused to donate the money. 
 
 "When we arrived at Aspinwall Island, look- 
 ing like two charcoal burners, everybody was 
 home and showed us how to set out our pine 
 tree. 
 
 John and I paid little attention to any one. 
 We dug a hole for the body of the tree and then 
 started to make trenches in the sod for the 
 roots, while the folks stared and wondered. 
 Then we stretched those roots each in its own 
 proper place, packed mushy mud about them, 
 regardless of all sense of respect for our hands, 
 and when the job was done we rose up, looked 
 upon our work, called it good, and I bragged of 
 the care we had taken and the labor we had 
 undergone. 
 
 John Badore was hanging around to witness 
 the performance of our tree-planting. 
 
 "I still maintain that the spring is the time to 
 
 n283 
 
set out all kinds of trees," he said; "early in 
 the spring, just as the frost leaves the ground, 
 and if you will let me do it" (this to me), "I 
 will set you out nest spring a nice, big pine tree 
 wherever you say. Then we can see which lives 
 the longer, yourn or mine. ' ' 
 
 I winked at John Antoine. "All right," I 
 replied graciously to John Badore. "I '11 show 
 you a suitable place, but remember you must 
 bring all the roots." 
 
 "Sure, I know," John Badore returned 
 proudly. ' ' I know how to do it. ' ' 
 
 The next morning I offered to bet Larry a 
 dollar even money that John Badore 's tree 
 would not live through the summer. I di^ not 
 believe it possible that any man would ever 
 again take the pains to unravel the roots of a 
 pine tree that John Antoine and I had taken 
 that hot afternoon. 
 
 Note.— Our pine tree bloomed throughout the 
 autumn, but in the following spring contracted 
 quick consumption and John and I laid it away 
 on the brush-pile. I am forced to relate, more- 
 over, with sadness that John Badore 's pine tree 
 fell a victim to infantile paralysis in its first 
 spring. 
 
 1:293 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 ABOUT FRIENDS AND FRIENDSHIPS 
 
 THOSE wlio come to visit us at Aspinwall 
 Island each summer add greatly to our 
 pleasure. 
 
 Having discovered this gem in the wilderness 
 and made it habitable, we desired immediately 
 to exhibit the treasure to our friends and to 
 listen like pleased children as they praised its 
 beauties. 
 
 But these good people were hundreds of miles 
 away and we were rather shy about asking them 
 to travel so great a distance simply to spend a 
 week or so with us on an island in a lake, where 
 the conveniences were limited. So to decoy 
 them I told fish stories during the winter 
 months. I told of the sensation caused by a 
 three-pound small-mouthed black bass hooked 
 to a silk line attached to a slender bamboo rod ; 
 of how such a bass would run out and in with 
 the hne, every few moments leaping grandly 
 from the water, plunging, tugging, swirling, 
 fighting every second of the time. As I talked 
 
 n303 
 
. ^ 
 
 
 MAKINfi CHOWDKK 
 
I would watch the expressions in the eyes of my 
 friends, and if their eyes glistened I had hopes. 
 Then I would tell of a rare fish chowder a guide 
 had shown me how to make ; how I took a lamb 
 bone, a fat chicken and a pound of breakfast 
 bacon chopped fine and boiled these in a pot for 
 one hour under a white birch tree near a great 
 rock on the Island ; how I added to this a plate 
 of chopped onions, another of cabbage and 
 potatoes, and when these had disappeared as 
 substances I dropped in the pot a dozen one- 
 pounder black bass, skinned, with all the bones 
 extracted and watched this white fish flesh 
 merge into the harmonious ensemble as I pep- 
 pered and salted to taste; how I added a dash 
 of tabasco and a tablespoonful of Worcester- 
 shire sauce; how within fifteen minutes of the 
 end I added a can of tomatoes and then brooded 
 over the pot as it bubbled and boiled, inhaling its 
 aroma until the bubbles began to plop, plop, and 
 I knew it was done. As I thus talked earnestly, 
 seeming passionately enamoured of the delec- 
 table nature of this chowder, I would watch the 
 lips of my listeners, and if I saw that they were 
 forced to use their handkerchiefs owing to their 
 mouths beginning to water, I knew they would 
 risk much time and reckon little on expense to 
 be placed in physical contact with such a brew. 
 Then I would say, while the glamour was still 
 
 1:313 
 
in their eyes and their lips were still moist, 
 "Why don't you run up and spend a week with 
 us at Sharbot Lake next summer and catch a few 
 bass? If you will come I shall promise to make 
 you a chowder." 
 
 Strong men busied with large undertakings, 
 and fine ladies accustomed to the ease and luxu- 
 ries of seaside and mountain hotels, have fought 
 vainly against the cravings of their natures as 
 these realistic stories penetrated to the depths 
 of their sensibilities. In the end they have come 
 through the heat and the dust of the long jour- 
 ney and we have met them at the humble little 
 station, conducted them over the railway tracks, 
 through the sawdust down to the landing, 
 stowed them in the motor boat with their hand 
 baggage, told Larry to let her go, all the while 
 our hearts in our mouths, my dear wife and I, 
 for fear that all this while they would be ex- 
 claiming mentally, "Well, this is an out-of-the- 
 way corner of the world, and whatever induced 
 us to come here?" 
 
 And then, when the SJiarbotina shot out into 
 the water, turned the corner of Thomson's 
 Point, and the beauties of the upper lake un- 
 rolled to view, for the first time we would dare 
 to turn and look them in the face. 
 
 The next morning, when we found our guests 
 up and around, inhaling the delicious fresh air, 
 
 1:323 
 
examining the flower beds, peeping into the 
 pump house, listening to the birds, their faces 
 aglow with happiness, we felt reassured. 
 
 But at night, when they came in after a day 
 with John on the lake, came in with laughter 
 and a merry shout, holding up the largest fish 
 for us to see as we trotted down to the boat 
 house to greet them, then we knew we were safe 
 from any possibility of recrimination, that the 
 sunshine, the air, the lake, the Island and John 
 had entered into their blood and become a part 
 of them and that they were enmeshed in the 
 Sharbotian snare forever. 
 
 Then we have rejoiced with them frankly as 
 we sat on the piazza side by side in a row after 
 supper, watching the sunset glows fade from 
 the sky, watching the stars peep out, watching 
 the moon unveil, watching the night creep in 
 from the lake and enfold us, listening to the 
 cries of the whippoorwills, for friendship is 
 sweet and holy and it is so good to love one's 
 friends and be kved by them. 
 
 Friendship ! It is rarer than love, the kindliest 
 emotion of the human heart. It is the supreme 
 sentiment which the soul manifests toward 
 other souls. It is affection without sex attrac- 
 tion. Throughout my life I have sought ear- 
 nestly to make friends and I have not limited 
 myself to a chosen few, but have been on the 
 
 n333 
 
contrary somewhat inclined to view discrimi- 
 nation in this regard with disfavor. 
 
 Friendships are not forced into being. They 
 are self-creative. They come spontaneously. 
 I like John Smith and John likes me. We get 
 into closer communion with each other and find 
 cause for mutual attraction. I like to hear my 
 friend talk about himself and his interests, 
 about his successes and his failures. If he is 
 my friend, his companionship is good to me. 
 I am at ease with him. I like to see the smile 
 in his eyes when he greets me, and I like to 
 make him believe in himself by showing him 
 that I admire and respect him and that I am 
 fond of him, for no one knows better than I do 
 how much the kind words and cordial hand- 
 clasps of one's friends mean to a man, aid him 
 in the building of his character, and make of him 
 whatever kind of a man he is. A good wife and 
 a good friend — they are a man's best assets. 
 
 The Theosophists have the charming thought, 
 for it is too fantastic to be termed a belief, that 
 each individual is surrounded by an aura, col- 
 ored by his personality, and that he radiates 
 yellow rays when he gives off love, crimson rays 
 when his heart emits hate or evil, and many 
 other rays descriptive of his several moods. 
 This is a delightful fancy, and for all I know, 
 there may be something to it. It is the one 
 
beauty in Theosophy that my heart clung to 
 after my mind decided that there were saner 
 methods of arriving at an intelligent conception 
 of spirituality than this transcendental philos- 
 ophy imported from India. 
 
 Each one of us, like a living star, has an atmo- 
 sphere of his own. My own eyesight cannot 
 detect colored emanations on the astral plane, 
 but I like to think they are there. I do know, 
 however, that what I have termed atmosphere 
 exists, and that it is charged with magnetism, 
 for I realize that I change to conform to the 
 moods of my friends just as a chameleon takes 
 on the coloring of its environment. 
 
 Aspinwall Island has an aura of its own, of 
 powerful influence and magnetic attraction, but 
 I have seen one gray-haired man envelop this 
 splendid aura in his own magnificent personal- 
 ity and dominate whatever radiating was being 
 done on that Island while he was a guest. "We 
 call this man our "star boarder." He lands 
 from the train with a shout of greeting. You 
 are convinced that he was never happier at any 
 other moment in his life. He has thrown the 
 world from his shoulders and here he is, feeling 
 fine. Arriving at the boat-landing, he throws 
 out his arms, inhales the strong, pure air, looks 
 up at the sun high in heaven and cheers the 
 Creator. He is tickled to death to see every- 
 
 n353 
 
body, even the village dogs and tlie Sharbot- 
 ina. 
 
 He moves out on the lake, snapping joy fires 
 like a spark-plug. When he reaches the Island, 
 he feels it over lovingly like a fond mother her 
 cherished child. He has a present for every- 
 body and the suit of clothes he stands in is for 
 John Antoine. He has worn it purposely. John 
 knows by past experience that that suit wiU be 
 Ms and gives it a discriminating glance. 
 
 He is full of news, hungry as a bear, and has 
 brought with him a full set of fishing tackle, the 
 latest word in that line, for so the man who sold 
 it to his son assured him. We look over this 
 fishing outfit, Larry and I, just as we have done 
 season after season for years. It is impossible, 
 a steel rod heavy enough to land a muskellonge, 
 and hooks big enough for salmon, heavy cotton 
 lines and reels that were made for the Ten Cent 
 Stores. We hoot at it. 
 
 "All right," he cries. "Give it to Leslie" 
 (John's boy), "and I '11 fish with Fred's old 
 pole same as I 've always done. ' ' 
 
 The next morning I am awakened by loud 
 shouting at five-thirty. It 's no use. Further 
 sleep is impossible, and anyhow the sun is star- 
 ing me out of countenance through the French 
 windows. I don my bathing-suit and go down 
 to the break-water. There he is in the water 
 
 n363 
 
to his neck, shouting that if he knew where the 
 crowbar was he could get out another stone 
 that he feels with his toes. From year to year, 
 he makes a business of removing stones from 
 the little bay before the boat house. "It 's fine 
 exercise for the abdominal muscles, ' ' he says. 
 
 He has lived a day before breakfast but is 
 eager to be off with John. They are blood 
 brothers of long standing. 
 
 That man is one of the friends who come to 
 see us at Aspinwall Island. We love him. 
 Everybody loves him. They can't help it. He 
 dominates all influences wherever he goes and 
 is at bottom the simplest-miuded, kindliest fel- 
 low who ever lived,— a big, white-haired boy 
 who will never grow old. And we love his wife 
 just as we love him. "We call her the "Gentle 
 One," for exactly as he is robust, is she gentle. 
 She sits all day on the piazza knitting afghans 
 for a grandchild now existent or one expectant. 
 The "Gentle One" has knitted miles of afghans, 
 it seems to me. She, too, diffuses happiness. 
 
 The point I wish to make in this brief sketch 
 of the "star boarder," is that each of our visi- 
 tors has an atmosphere or a radiance of his or 
 her own, that while they are with us their lives 
 mix with ours, that we absorb their influences 
 and they absorb ours, that each has his own 
 individual charm of personality, and that the 
 
 [373 
 
love and esteem of our friends add greatly to 
 our happiness and to the beauty of Aspinwall Is- 
 land ; for the fact that so many people have been 
 happy on this Island, admired it and loved it, has 
 undoubtedly magnified its charms in our eyes. 
 
 Now there is Eoby. He has a surname, but it 
 is not necessary to tell you what it is. Every- 
 body calls him Eoby except John Antoine, who 
 has always called him Eeuben, not -properly un- 
 derstanding his name in the first instance. 
 
 I have known Eoby for many years and we 
 have been like brothers from the day we met. 
 Eoby is not disingenuous like a little child. He 
 is a child. I never knew Eoby loved to fish until 
 the day in New York when I told him about 
 Aspinwall Island. He lives in the sunny South, 
 far down, and whenever he comes "to the Big 
 City to see the millionaires spend the beauti- 
 ful money," as he puts it, he reaches my office 
 early in the day and offers me immediately a 
 fat two-for-a-quarter cigar— one of a fine brand 
 that one of his partners introduced to his atten- 
 tion. Then he sits down opposite me and we tell 
 each other everything we know. First he asks 
 me about the "Grood Lady," as he terms my 
 wife, and I inquire as to the health and happi- 
 ness of Mrs. Eoby and the little Eobys, chiefly 
 of Eoby, Jr., the son and heir, a child marvellous 
 in all particulars, the latest story being that his 
 
 CSS] 
 
mother had just fitted him out for public school 
 with a hygienic lunch in a sterilized lunch box, 
 and that when he came home from this first day 
 at school, he replied, in answer to her question 
 as to how he enjoyed his lunch, that he had 
 traded it with another boy for some canned sal- 
 mon sandwiches. 
 
 But we must get back to earlier days, long be- 
 fore little Eoby was born. I told Eoby, of course, 
 all about my finding Aspinwall Island and the 
 wonderful black bass fishing in Sharbot Lake. 
 Then he unburdened his heart to me, told me 
 how he loved to fish, what an expert fisherman 
 he was, how he dreamed about fish as soon as 
 the pussy-willows budded in the spring, and he 
 asked me if there were not some vacant island in 
 Sharbot Lake where he and a few of his South- 
 ern friends could pitch a tent and spend a few 
 weeks. 
 
 "What is the good of camping out?" I re- 
 plied. ' ' You come along with me to Aspinwall 
 Island next summer. There is lots of room." 
 
 "Fred," he replied, "if you had asked me to 
 go to Heaven I 'd hesitate on account of the 
 wife and children, but I reckon I can't refuse 
 such a polite invitation as you extend to me. I '11 
 come. You can bet five hundred thousand dol- 
 lars that I '11 come the minute I get your wire ; 
 and I '11 tell you what 's more, I '11 bring up the 
 
 CSS] 
 
finest fishing outfit ever displayed before the 
 eyes of a Canadian guide." 
 
 So Eoby came the first summer. He fell in 
 love with Sharbot Lake and Aspinwall Island 
 on sight. He fished all day long and in the 
 evening laid out his tackle for the next day. He 
 had a box with many compartments full of 
 things. He was constantly polishing and oiling. 
 He had half a dozen poles which he fondled 
 morning and evening. He smoked incessantly 
 those remarkable two-for-a-quarter cigars, but 
 knowing my sarcastic proclivities, he brought a 
 box of havanas which he set on the writing- 
 table for the guests. As for him, he preferred 
 the delectable brands of Key West. 
 
 Eoby added another ray of sunshine to the 
 glory of the day. He mourned, as we did, when 
 he went away, and during the following winter 
 he talked incessantly about buying an island 
 and ha-\dng a little shack put up for himself and 
 his friends. I did not rise to his lure until late 
 in the spring, when I said to him carelessly, "I 
 suppose you will be with us for a couple of 
 weeks at Sharbot this summer." 
 
 "Fred," he said, "to be real honest, I never 
 did enjoy sleeping in a tent. That west bed- 
 room at the cottage on Aspinwall Island is my 
 ideal for peaceful slumber. Do you honestly 
 mean you want me to come up this summer?" 
 
"To be sure," I replied. 
 
 "Well, you have saved my life, old man," lie 
 returned gravely. "I 'd 'a' died of longing if 
 you had not asked me. ' ' 
 
 The following year little Eoby was born and 
 he did not come, but the year after that Mrs. 
 Eoby and the baby and the nurse and Eoby all 
 came to the Island. We considered it a great 
 honor for Mrs. Eoby to come, for we thought 
 the wilderness would not attract so dainty a 
 lady, but she came and outdid Eoby even in 
 enthusiasm. In fact, she determined to pur- 
 chase a point a little to the north of the Island, 
 and we forthwith named it Eoby's Point. On 
 this point the Eobys built a very pretty cottage 
 the following spring, and they have been our 
 next door neighbors nearly every summer since 
 then. Bach season when they come they bring 
 a few Southern friends as guests, and it is my 
 delight to paddle over to the Point in the morn- 
 ing and listen to these charming Southern peo- 
 ple talk. We visit back and forth several times 
 a day, and Eoby is always calling on me to go 
 fishing with him, but I seldom have time. But 
 when we do go out together, our conversation 
 must afford John rare entertainment. We rail 
 at each other's fishing methods. We lay all 
 kinds of wagers. We abuse each other's cigars. 
 In fact we have a fine time, and generally we 
 
bring home a box of fish that makes even Larry 
 sit up and take notice. 
 
 Such friendships are altogether delightful. 
 Life would mean little without them. To sit in 
 the sunshine of a friend's smile is the most ideal 
 form of relaxation. Friendship is a bridge 
 between two personalities that affords a neutral 
 meeting place for spiritual communications. 
 
 I made a friend once simply by giving earnest 
 expression to opinions. It was in the little 
 smoking compartment of a Pullman sleeping- 
 car in North Dakota. The train was stuck fast 
 in a huge snowdrift. It was the time of the 
 great European war. There were half a dozen 
 men of us, all strangers, and we were discussing 
 the war. One man, a fine old fellow, smart and 
 suave, a banker and large rancher, argued 
 strongly in favor of Germany because of its 
 kultur and efficiency. He worshipped the latter 
 characteristic of the Teutons. He told us that 
 life meant to him progress developed along 
 definite lines, expertness in each occupation or 
 profession, and he believed that such progress 
 would not be attained by the individual except 
 under the masterful dominance of the State. 
 He elaborated on this idea untilmy patience was 
 exhausted. It was the same old propaganda, word 
 for word, preached by Dr. Dernberg and his suc- 
 cessors. So I said to him: "Sir, you told us 
 
about your life here in North Dakota, your great 
 farm, your bank, your lumber mill in British 
 Columbia, and your delight in life, before you 
 branched off on the doctrine according to Saint 
 Otto von Bismarck. You strike me as a man 
 who has enjoyed all his life long the fullest 
 measure of individual liberty. Initiative fairly 
 oozes from you. But you have had such a com- 
 pleteness of liberty in your life that it has been 
 to you simply like the sunshine and fresh air, 
 unbounded and unmeasurable, an every-day 
 affair, a matter of course, not worth the brain 
 effort necessary to a proper appreciation and 
 conception of it. 
 
 "Now let me tell you something which all the 
 world knows, except possibly North Dakota. 
 There is an iron hand that goes with German 
 kultur and efficiency. This iron hand touches 
 every man, woman and child in the Empire, and 
 at that touch they feel a command to do what 
 the State demands, and they know that they 
 must do this, good or bad, without reflection on 
 their own personal desires. Many centuries ago 
 this iron hand of imperial dominance existed in 
 England, and it so revolted the consciences of 
 those rude Normans, Saxons and Celts that they 
 threw it off forever when they declared for the 
 liberty of the individual in Magna Charta. That 
 love of individual initiative, of personal voli- 
 
tion, is aflame in the world to-day, burning in 
 the hearts of all members of the British Empire, 
 of all Frenchmen, of all Enssians, of all Ital- 
 ians. Those people are fighting your fight and 
 mine, a fight that you may continue to be the 
 free man you are, and you don't realize it but 
 talk to me about kultur and efficiency. I say, ' To 
 the Devil with kultur and efficiency if their com- 
 panion is to be the iron hand of the State ! ' I 
 demand to be my own master under the common 
 law. I want to do as I like, go where I like, talk 
 as I like, believe as I like, and that is why I hope 
 the Allies will win. ' ' 
 
 Just then I felt a vigorous slap on my shoul- 
 der, and turning my head I looked up to see a 
 man over six feet tall, standing leaning on the 
 rail of my seat which went half way across the 
 compartment. He was a dark-faced, grim-look- 
 ing man with clear, cold eyes which glinted 
 earnestly. 
 
 "Friend," said he to me, "you have struck 
 the nail on the head. I never thought of it that 
 way before, but I know you are right. ' ' 
 
 Then he turned to the others. "Men," he 
 said slowly, "I am a sheep-rancher. I own ten 
 thousand sheep on the plains in southern Al- 
 berta. They are my sheep. I moved over from 
 Montana, where I was being crowded, and 
 started with a buck and two ewes some ten 
 
 1:443 
 
years ago. And there ain't a morning of those 
 ten years that I have n't gone out to the grazing 
 grounds where you could see the sky touch 
 ground all about you, and lifting up my head, 
 thanked the Almighty that I was a free man. I 
 love human liberty. It 's a passion with me. 
 I wiU obey the law, but I don't want that law 
 to come on to my sheep ranch and tell me what 
 I shall do and what I sha'n't do. I know my 
 place in the State. Let the State keep to its 
 own place. ' ' 
 
 The next morning this sheep-rancher came 
 and sat down beside me and told me the story 
 of his life, and I never listened to a more enter- 
 taining one. He was a shepherd who loved his 
 sheep, who had studied the psychology of his 
 flock, who treated the timid creatures in his care 
 on the basis of the personality of each. I got 
 a wise saying from him, one that I wiU never 
 forget and one that every young man should 
 frame and ponder on. It is this : ' ' The success- 
 ful sheep-raiser must be on hand personally 
 when the lambs are born." This, he told me, 
 was the key to the sheep business. "Be on 
 hand yourself when the lambs are born." 
 There 's a lot of thought in those words. 
 
 That sheep-rancher and I became great 
 friends. He invited me to visit him at his sheep 
 farm and I am going to do it some day. When 
 
lie gave me Ms card and took mine, he said, in 
 a deep, strong voice : "You and I could n't ever 
 be anything else but friends, for we have the 
 same identical idea of liberty and the same love 
 of nature. I knew it when I heard you talk. I 
 knew you then as well as I would know you in 
 a hundred years. That old North Dakota fellow 
 has good ideas about business, but he ain't right 
 about liberty. Business and efficiency have 
 nothing to do with it. It 's a religion, like a 
 man's love of God when he lies on his back of a 
 summer night on the plains and looks up at the 
 stars." 
 
 There was a man such as Abraham was in his 
 younger days, before he developed bad habits 
 trading with the Egyptians. 
 
 n46n 
 
CHAPTEK III 
 
 THE WINKLES AND THE WOODS 
 
 ONE afternoon John and I went fishing along 
 the high wooded shore of a long, deep bay 
 which forms the southern extremity of Sharbot 
 Lake. It was warm and there was barely a 
 ripple on the water. We knew the fish would 
 not bite, but I was in an indolent mood and eared 
 little whether I had luck or not. I leaned back 
 contentedly in the comfortable cane chair in the 
 stern of the boat, with John facing me and row- 
 ing mechanically hand over hand slowly, while 
 he inspected the shore as intently as if he an- 
 ticipated a discovery. After a while we rounded 
 a little point and entered a channel between the 
 mainland and an island. Presently I saw the 
 ruin of a log house on the shore and I asked 
 John who had lived there. 
 
 "Old Mr. Winkle and his wife lived there a 
 number of years ago," John replied, as he 
 looked thoughtfully at the cabin. 
 
 "Let us land," I said, "and look the place 
 over. ' ' 
 
 [47] 
 
The windows and doors were gone, the floor 
 had fallen in, but we discovered that the roof 
 was still in good condition and the log walls in 
 an excellent state of preservation. Leading up 
 from the lake was the outline of a path that had 
 been bordered by rose and black currant bushes, 
 and at the right and left of this path were two 
 beds that once had contained flowers but which 
 now nourished only weeds. 
 
 "The old woman had a fine garden here 
 once, ' ' John observed. 
 
 I seated myself on the door-sill of the cabin, 
 filled and lit my pipe, while John seated himself 
 on a boulder near me. 
 
 "Tell me about those old people who lived 
 here," I asked him. 
 
 "Well, sir," John began slowly, drawling his 
 words as was his habit, "that was a long time 
 ago. They were here when I first came to the 
 lake, old Mr. and Mrs. Winkle ; he was a little, 
 dried-up old fellow and she was even smaller 
 and thinner, but the brightest, most active old 
 woman you ever saw. She was twice as smart 
 as he was and always used to paddle him back 
 and forth to the village. Tears before I knew 
 them, they had come to the lake. There was no 
 railroad then, just a little store and a few 
 houses at the village and Francis Sharbot and 
 his family settled in Sharbot 's Cove. The lum- 
 
bermen had just begun to cut the tall pine trees 
 which grew thick on the shores. The Winkles 
 built this log house, cleared the few acres you 
 see in back of it, got together a cow or so, a few 
 pigs and chickens, made maple sugar in the 
 spring, fished when they wanted fish, raised a 
 few potatoes and hay enough to winter their 
 cows, and the old woman she raised flowers." 
 
 John paused and looked down over the ruined 
 garden. 
 
 "Everybody liked Mrs. Winkle," he resumed. 
 "She was a laughing, jolly old woman, but Old 
 Man Winkle would get drunk and helpless as a 
 baby, and when he was drunk he would chatter 
 like an idiot. Many a time at her request I have 
 carried him down to their dugout, set him safe 
 in the bottom and started them off home, she 
 full of fun and good nature, a-petting the old 
 man like as if he were a bad child. How she 
 ever got him up to the house when they reached 
 home, I never could make out. But she did it, 
 the tiny, little weazened-up, old body, and the 
 next day he would be all right again, running 
 around trying to do something to please her, 
 for he simply worshipped her, did that old man. 
 
 "He taught me to play the fiddle. Sundays 
 I used to paddle down to see them, me and Pete 
 Charles, and we would find them dressed up 
 spick and span, she sitting in an arm-chair out 
 
 1:493 
 
here on the lawn among the flowers and the old 
 man sitting where you are now, on the door- 
 step, playing the fiddle. "We could hear it far 
 up the lake as we paddled. I always wished I 
 could play the fiddle as well as Old Man 
 Winkle." 
 
 "What did he play!" I inquired. 
 
 "Tunes, all kinds of tunes," John replied. 
 "The sweetest tunes I ever heard, but never a 
 jig on Sunday. No, sir; the old lady would n't 
 have it. It might have been church music. I 
 don't know. It was just grand to listen to, 
 and me and Pete Charles would lie stretched 
 out on the grass here for hours and listen. 
 I asked him once where he learned it all. He 
 said he did n't know. It just came natural. 
 But I never could learn those Sunday tunes. I 
 got the jigs all right, but the music he played 
 for the old woman of a Sunday was too much 
 for me." 
 
 "After the music I suppose you and Pete 
 stayed for dinner," I ventured. 
 
 "Well, we usually did," John returned dryly. 
 "You see, me and Pete were youngish men then 
 and they were both along in years. So after 
 the music we turned to and cut 'em up a week's 
 stove wood and did any heavy work there was 
 to do round the place. The old woman always 
 gave us a fine dinner, I tell you ! She generally 
 
 1:503 
 
had fried cakes and honey, them twisted kind 
 of fried cakes with lots of honey. The bee-hives 
 used to set along the rocks over there to the 
 right. Perhaps they would have chicken pot- 
 pie. There was plenty to eat, and that the best. 
 Then, sir, in the afternoon the old man would 
 play the fiddle again and old Mrs. "Winkle would 
 sing religious tunes. She had a piping, high- 
 pitched voice, but me and Pete liked to hear her. 
 We always had a fondness for that old woman 
 and days and days we hunted roots for her 
 in the woods to make medicine with, and we 
 were eternally finding flower bushes for her. 
 Why, she had a garden here that bloomed clear 
 to the lake, flowers every foot of it. That 's 
 how I come to be handy at making flower beds 
 up at the Island for you. I learned it from her. 
 She had a saying, ' Smile on the flowers and the 
 flowers '11 smile back at you. ' She loved them, 
 and it 's a true saying that you got to love flow- 
 ers to make them grow. They certainly grew 
 for her. She could raise anything down here. ' ' 
 
 John paused suddenly, arose and examined a 
 black currant bush. "I remember when she 
 first planted them black currants," he said. 
 "She died that year." 
 
 "Did she die first, or did the old man?" I 
 asked. 
 
 ' ' He went first, but she followed him two days 
 
after and we buried them side by side up yonder 
 on the hill," John replied, pointing to the hill. 
 
 I arose and followed him to the graves. 
 There were no slabs to mark the last home of 
 these quaint, old people, but the earth revealed 
 clearly where they rested. 
 
 Immediately in the rear of the graves was a 
 decayed rail fence, and as I turned I received 
 the impression that the tall trees of the forest 
 were bending over this fence observing me, the 
 forest that this man and woman had moved back 
 to the crest of the ridge and placed in bonds. 
 
 It was an eerie sensation. I returned to the 
 cabin and threw myself on the grass by the 
 shore, a slave to the fancies that took possession 
 of me, for I could not resist recreating the 
 scene. I saw the cabin with its cleanly scrubbed 
 floor, its windows bright with flowers. I saw the 
 shelves on which were placed the few dishes and 
 bits of crockery. I saw the smoke rising from 
 the chimney. Little, old Mrs. Winkle was get- 
 ting dinner ready, for I heard the kettle sing 
 on the stove. Presently she came to the door 
 and looked out. What a delightful view was 
 presented to her eyes! The graceful curving 
 channel of water between her and the charming 
 island covered with white birches, to the east 
 and west the lake shores fringed with graceful 
 white pines, and immediately before her the gar- 
 
 1:523 
 
den of flowers she loved. I saw her step from 
 the cabin, bend down among her flowers, caress- 
 ing them with eye and band as she inhaled their 
 fragrance. And then I saw old Mr. Winkle 
 come in from his work, stand his hoe np against 
 the cabin, wash his hands and face in the basin 
 near the door, and ask his good wife if the din- 
 ner was ready. John was right. They loved 
 each other, these two little, old people in the 
 wilderness. They were aU in aU to each other. 
 He was her man, she his woman. They had 
 mated years ago, and having no possessions had 
 wandered into the loving arms of the good Grod. 
 Like two birds they had made themselves a nest 
 on the sloping sonthem shore of the lake where 
 the forest broke the force of the north wind, 
 where the spring came early, where there was a 
 perpetnal hnmmer and drnmmer of life in the 
 air in aU bnt the stern winter months, where 
 flowers and berries grew Inxnriantly, where the 
 sky seemed almost jnst over the tree-tops and 
 peace brooded npon the earth. I listened and 
 I heard old Mr. TVinMe playing his Smiday 
 tunes on his violin. I knew, even if John did 
 not, what those tunes were. They were the love 
 sones of the birds at mating time. They were 
 the croonings of the west wind as it swept 
 through the channel, they were the sighings of 
 the pine trees over on the south shore, they were 
 
the songs of the waters and the melodies of the 
 summer rain falling upon the parched earth, 
 they were the slumber songs of the stars sing- 
 ing together in the long twilights, they were the 
 beatings of his heart and of that of the woman 
 he loved. 
 
 I listened and I heard old Mrs. Winkle in 
 shrill, quavering tones sing her Sunday hymns : 
 "Blessed be Thou, our God Who lovest us. Who 
 hast given us sweet water to drink, clean food 
 to nourish our bodies, pure air to breathe, Who 
 hast spread out Thy Heavens before us in all 
 their majesty and beauty, Who hast shielded us 
 from the tempest, Who hast removed us from 
 evil. Who hast honored the altar we have raised 
 to Thee in the wilderness. Who givest us rest 
 and sleep. Praise be to God ! " 
 
 And I closed my eyes in reverence and awe, 
 for I realized at that moment that the mysteries 
 of this lovely spot were being unveiled. 
 
 Then John and I came away. And always 
 since then, as I row past this ruined cabin and 
 this abandoned garden, I look with veneration 
 upon the place, for here once lived and spun out 
 their tale of days, a man and a woman who 
 loved life and each other and were happy, and 
 such a spot is holy ground. 
 
 But the memory of those great trees bending 
 over the decayed rail fence, observing me as I 
 
stood by the graves of the two old people, re- 
 mained with me even when I returned to the 
 city, where fancies do not thrive well in the 
 glare and roar of urban life. 
 
 Trees I have always respected as of my own 
 kin. They have a language which I understand. 
 The spirits of those trees appealed to me with 
 the cry of souls in captivity, and for a long time 
 I could not conceive what message they had for 
 me. Suddenly I realized it. They dreaded the 
 axe. Every forest for many miles about the 
 lake had been slain by the lumbermen, yet for 
 some reason or other these. sturdy trees on the 
 shore of this one bay in the lake had been 
 spared. I made inquiries and discovered that 
 this wood lot consisted of some two hundred 
 acres, that for forty years it had been in Chan- 
 cery, and no man had presented a legal claim to 
 it, but that now the title was clear and it awaited 
 the auction block and the highest bidder. 
 
 I bought this forest immediately, not knowing 
 its value, but being fully aware that I could free 
 those trees, whose spirits had appealed to me, 
 from all present fear of the axe, and having 
 the further knowledge that the Winkle home- 
 stead was included in the purchase. 
 
 The following season, on a clear, cold Septem- 
 ber day, John and I started on a trip of inspec- 
 tion. "We entered the forest at the eastern point 
 
where it juts out into the lake like a human 
 thumb. John soon found a deer trail and we 
 followed this through the dense growth of 
 cedars, beech and poplar until we came to a 
 ravine at the base of the thumb. Beyond this 
 we entered into a forest cathedral pillared with 
 giant maples, many of them being over two feet 
 in diameter and rising some sixty feet before 
 branching out. Subsequently we counted fully 
 fifteen hundred of these maples and I realized 
 that I had purchased a Eubens when I had 
 only expected an ordinary painting. 
 
 All the morning we wandered among these 
 trees. Many of the leaves had fallen and we 
 walked on a yellow carpet. Here and there we 
 found groups of basswood trees, tall and slen- 
 der. It was amusing to observe how these trees 
 had clambered for the sunshine. Each one 
 seemed determined to climb high enough to look 
 over the heads of his fellows. What beautiful 
 clean-limbed creatures they were ! I rejoiced in 
 them and I swore to them then and there that 
 while I lived they should live also. 
 
 As we walked we could hear eagles screech 
 as they soared overhead and now and then we 
 obtained a glimpse of one against the blue sky. 
 
 What a sugar bush ! The maples should not 
 object if they were tapped now and then in the 
 springtime. Having conceived this thought, I 
 
 1:563 
 
seated myself with John on a log and discussed 
 a plan covering the building of a log cahiu in. 
 the midst of these maples, a cabin with a fire- 
 place and bunks along two sides of it, like berths 
 in a state-room. In the center of the cabin we 
 decided that there should be a square wooden 
 table and four comfortable arm-chairs placed 
 about it. There must be a cupboard for dishes 
 and pots and pans. Also this cabin must be 
 stocked with a maple sugar outfit sufficient to 
 take care of say five hundred trees, the boiling 
 place to be inamediately in front of the building. 
 Such a layout would permit me to invite three 
 choice souls each spring to accompany me to 
 this log shanty in the forest and make sugar on 
 shares. We might ask John to give us instruc- 
 tions, but we would do all our own work, cook 
 our food and live like backwoodsmen. 
 
 "Would it not be fine here in the forest with a 
 couple of feet of clean, white snow on the 
 ground! Each morning we would gather sap 
 and boil all day. In the evening, tired as only 
 men can be who have tramped miles in the snow, 
 we would sit by the fire and smoke and tell 
 yarns. And what a fire we would have, great 
 beech logs and white birches that would snap 
 and roar ! 
 
 John thought it would be great and told me 
 I might make a lot of money selling maple 
 
sugar. We decided then and there on the brand. 
 We would cast every cake in a mould containing 
 the stamp, "Absolutely pure, from the Winkle 
 Woods in the Wilderness. ' ' 
 
 I laughed aloud and John smiled. Then we 
 arose and continued our tramp through the for- 
 est until we reached the western boundary. 
 These woods proved to be a glorious virgin 
 hardwood forest, a mighty congregation of 
 maples, beeches, elms, ironwoods, noble forest 
 gentlemen in the sight of the Lord. 
 
 When I returned to New York that fall, the 
 first man I unveiled the sugar bush scheme to 
 was a nerve specialist of national reputation, a 
 good friend of mine, a man who had been reared 
 with nine brothers in a log cabin in Nova Scotia. 
 
 "0 man,!' he wrote to me one time, com- 
 menting on a little book I had sent him called 
 "A Memory of Tom Fox and Happiness," in 
 which I had described a log cabin in the woods 
 where my brother and I one day had dinner, "if 
 instead of the stove Tom Fox had had a big 
 stone fireplace, your story would have been 
 more appealing,— such a fireplace as we had 
 when I was a boy. It seems very beautiful to 
 me now when I see it in my reveries. Many a 
 time I stood in the corner of the chimney and 
 looked up at the stars on a clear night. And 
 such stars! The heavens look more beautiful 
 
 CSS] 
 
and the stars twinkle more sharply on clear, 
 frosty Canadian nights than in warmer regions. 
 If you had had the memory of a chimney and 
 fire logs of white birch warming and lighting 
 the kitchen and shining on the china on the 
 ' dresser ' in the corner, you would have written 
 a poem." 
 
 It is evident that he was the type of man to 
 unburden one's heart to in relation to a pro- 
 posed sugar camp in a Canadian forest. 
 
 "Will I go, you ask me?" he exclaimed with 
 enthusiasm. "I will go, and hospital lectures 
 may go hang when you pass me the word; but 
 say, let me design the fireplace in our cabin." 
 
 He has my plighted word. 
 
 The next man I told my sugar bush romance 
 to was the vice-president of one of our great 
 trunk line systems. He never faltered. "I will 
 count the days until then," he assured me. 
 "And say," he added, "why have John? I 
 know how to boil down sap and tap trees. Let 
 us have no hired men. I will chop all the wood 
 and you do the cooking. Can you make batter 
 for old-fashioned buckwheat pancakes? If you 
 can't, I '11 show you how. You know it has to 
 be set over night. It rises fluffy in the morning. 
 I know a man along our line who makes camping 
 outfits. Let me supply the fixtures. ' ' 
 
 One day last summer I was taking lunch at 
 
 CSS] 
 
the Bankers Club with a man who had just 
 completed several contracts in war supplies 
 that had netted him a great deal of money. He 
 looked tired and worn. So as we sat and ate, 
 looking now and then over the roofs of Wall 
 Street, down the Bay, I thought I would try my 
 sugar bush Elysian dream on him as a psycho- 
 logical experiment. 
 
 "How many acres have you got up there?" 
 was the first question he asked me. 
 
 "About two hundred," I replied. 
 
 "And about fifteen hundred maple trees?" 
 
 "Fully that number." 
 
 ' ' Sell me half and name your own price ? ' ' 
 
 "Oh, no," I replied, somewhat offended. "I 
 would never think of selling any part of the 
 forest. ' ' 
 
 "Then why tell me about it? Don't you real- 
 ize that I was born in Michigan where trees 
 grow, that I was reared in a sugar bush? ' ' 
 
 "Well, then, come along and take one of the 
 bunks. ' ' 
 
 He laughed. "Sell me half of the bush and 
 I will have a camp there this coming winter and 
 invite you as my guest. You will never build 
 your camp. You are a dreamer, just a miser- 
 able dreamer, who loves to aggravate a fellow. 
 Why, say, I had rather spend a month in such 
 a camp as you propose than six years at Palm 
 
 ceo;] 
 
Beach. Where did you get the idea? Come, 
 let 's do it. You furnish the trees, I '11 furnish 
 the camp and fit it out complete. By George! 
 it wiU be immense. We must get hold of lum- 
 bermen's long-legged boots with red tassels on 
 them. We '11 cut a hole in the lake for drinking 
 water. Say, do you know how to make corn- 
 meal johnny-cake? I do. I can fry bacon and 
 eggs so they will melt in your mouth. Come on, 
 sell me half of that sugar bush, for I know 
 you '11 just dream about it. ' ' 
 
 I have not dared to tell my story to any more 
 of my friends, for there are only four bunks in 
 that imaginary cabin. 
 
 Some day I certainly shall build that log 
 shanty in the maple forest. The Doctor has the 
 fireplace all designed and my railroad friend 
 keeps constantly inquiring when I shall be 
 ready for the fixtures. 
 
 But my ammunition friend sneers at me. He 
 says I am a dog in the manger, that he will 
 never be happy until he finds a sugar bush for 
 his own, but that it will never be as attractive 
 as my sugar bush, for there haloes mine aU the 
 confounded romance that I have woven about 
 John and Old Man Winkle and Mrs. Winkle and 
 the tall trees stretching up to look over one 
 another's shoulders to see what is going on in 
 the world. "How can you expect a man," he 
 
says, "ever to be content to settle down in a 
 common, every-day sugar bush? It is not Rea- 
 sonable." 
 
 However, I told none of them about the de- 
 lights of making Cockayne in the snow. They 
 may know all about it, but I dare not suggest it 
 until I am ready to build that cabin, for there is 
 a limit to man's endurance. The description of 
 sitting around that big fireplace toasting one's 
 toes in the evening and smoking one's pipe is as 
 near Heaven as I dare attempt to lead any man, 
 knowing the gate is closed for the time being. 
 
 1:62] 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 TOil JOHNSON AND ROVER 
 
 A SPINWALL ISLAND lacks one essential - 
 -^^ a dog. We have no dog because we have 
 no permanent home with a back yard, and a dog 
 for the few months at the Island would mean 
 a pain at parting each autumn, and the jealous 
 apprehension that he would be Larry's dog or 
 John Antoine 's when we returned the following 
 season. 
 
 I have loved two dogs in my time. The first 
 was a mongrel terrier I adopted when a small 
 boy and to whose memory I remained faithful 
 for thirty years. Then I came to love Tom 
 Johnson the Barmecide, a Boston bull of fine 
 breeding, a dog with the spirit of a being un- 
 known to evil. 
 
 Why did I call him Tom Johnson the Barme- 
 cide? Foolishness, just foolishness. I had been 
 reading Sir Eichard Burton's "A Thousand 
 Nights and a Night," and with particular inter- 
 est the tales concerning the adventures of 
 "Harun el Easchid and Jaafer the Barmecide," 
 
 n633 
 
the loyal companion and friend, so I called 
 Tom Johnson "the Barmecide," one evening as 
 we played together on the stairs. All the folks 
 thought it a delightful name. If it were not for 
 the sunshine of such foolishness, how cold our 
 lives would be ! 
 
 One day when I entered my office I found a 
 fat young man awaiting me, and at his feet a 
 Boston bull puppy. 
 
 I sat down and looked at the man and the dog. 
 
 "I heard you wanted a thoroughbred pup," 
 the fat young man said, smiling universally as 
 to his face, a remarkable and captivating smile 
 which played across the lines of his forehead, 
 danced in his eyes, rippled about the corners of 
 his mouth, and ran in and out of the wrinkles of 
 his fleshy cheeks and neck. 
 
 The puppy seated itself on its haunches 
 squarely before me, opened its mouth, lolled out 
 its pink tongue, and looked up into my eyes 
 with the look of a child that trusts you abso- 
 lutely, likes your face, and is prepared to break 
 into a gleeful gurgle at the first sight of a re- 
 ciprocating feeling on your part. 
 
 "What is his name?" I inquired. 
 
 "Tommy I calls him," the fat young man 
 replied. 
 
 "Tommy!" I repeated in low tones and 
 smiled back at the puppy. 
 
 1:64] 
 
His eyes melted into a look of absolute fe- 
 licity. 
 
 Then the fat young man told me Tommy's 
 pedigree for five generations or so, but I did 
 not heed his words. My soul and Tommy's soul 
 were trying to remember where they had met 
 before, could not recollect, but were certain 
 they were affinities. There was no question 
 about it. 
 
 "How much do you want for the puppy?" I 
 asked absently. 
 
 "Fifty dollars, and he 's dirt cheap," the fat 
 young man replied with emphasis. 
 
 I turned to my desk mechanically, wrote out a 
 check, handed it to him and shook his hand. 
 
 ' ' You don 't take long to make up your mind, ' ' 
 he said, and once again smiled universally. 
 
 "At times, no," I returned, and bid him 
 good-day. TThen he was gone Tommy and I fell 
 iato each other's arms. 
 
 Tommy, soon called Tom Johnson for the 
 sake of euphony, and later Tom Johnson the 
 Barmecide, lived with us for three years ; every 
 one at home loved him and Bridget adored him. 
 He had no knowledge of fear. He had not a sin- 
 gle mean or cringing instinct. He was never sad, 
 but always joyous, always ready to play, and 
 always that beautiful, ecstatic spirit beamed or 
 coquetted in his eyes. And dogs loved him as 
 
 n653 
 
spontaneously as did hnmans. I have seen a 
 savage fighting dog make after him as he and 
 I were taking a stroll. Tom Johnson would 
 stop, wait for the big dog to rush up at him, 
 then put his two f orepaws on the other 's shoul- 
 ders and look at him. That was all. In a few 
 seconds the big dog would be caressing Tom 
 Johnson and fairly begging him to stay and 
 play awhile. 
 
 He died on Thanksgiving day just at dinner 
 time. He had been ill for a couple of days with 
 double pneumonia. The doctor could not help 
 him. He lay on a soft cushion on an arm-chair 
 in the kitchen near the stove. About twelve 
 o'clock I went in to see him and he licked my 
 hand and smiled. I thought he might get bet- 
 ter. 
 
 Just as we had seated ourselves at the table, 
 Jenny opened the serving door, the tears 
 in her eyes, and said with a sob, "Tommy is 
 dead." Then we heard Bridget wail. 
 
 That was a gloomy Thanksgiving day for our 
 little family. 
 
 The following morning a neighboring carpen- 
 ter made a box for him. Bridget and my wife 
 laid him out, placing cotton batting in the bot- 
 tom for him to rest on. Then in the afternoon 
 my wife and I took him with us in the spider 
 phaeton, drawn by Molly, who was also his dear 
 
 n663 
 
friend, out to the golf grounds, where we buried 
 him at the foot of a large elm tree. I confess 
 my wife and I shed tears as I filled the grave, 
 for we dearly loved Tom Johnson the Barme- 
 cide. 
 
 We have never had a dog since. 
 
 Eover was an entirely different being from 
 Tom Johnson and I loved him in a different 
 way. He was my dog when I was a boy. We 
 were bedfellows, chums, fellow adventurers, 
 explorers, hunters, loafers, enjoying to its full 
 that undefinable but charming relationship that 
 exists between a boy and his dog. Eover was 
 not a gentleman, neither was I. Our tastes were 
 crude, even barbaric. We were gentle in play 
 but savage in warfare. When entering into 
 combat he had a smile like that of a demon. His 
 teeth shone, his eyes glistened evilly, and every 
 muscle and nerve of his body lusted for slaugh- 
 ter. And I would fight, and cry as I fought, for 
 the sheer excitement of conflict. The boy and 
 his dog are very close to the same plane, that is 
 why there is such a spirit of true companion- 
 ship uniting them and that is the reason they 
 understand each other so well. Their natures 
 are in harmony. 
 
 The boy who has not had his own dog and 
 made a chum of him has missed much in his life. 
 The following is a poem I wrote many years ago 
 
 [67] 
 
when my Muse trailed that charming fellow, 
 Eiley: 
 
 "I Ve known women, likewise hosses, 
 
 And ain't got nothin' to say ag'iu' either; 
 But for downright lovin' when hard luck 
 crosses 
 Y 'r pathway, gimme a dog ! ' ' 
 
 I had been inclined to believe that only human 
 beings had souls until I became well acquainted 
 with Eover. There was no doubt about it in 
 his case, for a soul shone in his eyes, revealing 
 an intelligence of a high order. 
 
 Rover entered my life as a stray dog. One 
 day Jack and I found him, frightfully hungry, 
 making a meal on a piece of veal in the barn. 
 He glared at us with eyes like balls of fire and 
 snarled wickedly. So we left him to finish his 
 breakfast and started to play baseball in the 
 door-yard. Jack was pitcher, I was batter and 
 the barn was catcher. If I got a two-bagger, 
 I had to field it myself. Jack believed he had 
 developed a true curve and I humored him in 
 the idea, for my delight in those days was to 
 "line 'em out." 
 
 While we were thus playing, the strange dog 
 approached us from the barnyard. We saw he 
 was a black dog, medium-sized, of terrier breed, 
 and we unanimously agreed that he was the 
 
homeliest dog we had ever seen. He stood 
 looking at us and we stopped our game, impelled 
 to return his gaze by the earnestness of his 
 expression. There was no friendliness in his 
 look, not a bit. But I never was afraid of dogs, 
 not even the ugliest of them, so I called to him 
 cheerfully, if somewhat sarcastically : 
 
 "Hello, there, you old fellow!" 
 
 At this he wagged his tail once. Then I began 
 to call him in dog names, but he made no motion 
 until I called him "Eover." At the sound of 
 this name he pricked up his ears and advanced 
 to within a few yards of us. 
 
 "Well," I said to him, using dog talk, "he 's 
 a nice young feller, so he is, a good black dog, 
 well, I guess yes, a fine black dog, that is what 
 he is, a nice feller, sure, a good black dog. ' ' 
 
 I had not completed the above complimentary 
 remarks before this ill-favored animal began 
 crawling meekly toward me until he reached my 
 feet, and then he turned over on his back, sur- 
 rendering himself absolutely to my mercy while 
 he lolled out his tongue and assumed the picture 
 of abject misery and helplessness. 
 
 It touched my heart and I knelt down and 
 patted his head. He licked my hand and sought 
 strenuously to lick my face, but I would not have 
 that, the memory of his feast of veal being so 
 fresh. Then I arose quickly and called to him : 
 
 n693 
 
"Hi there now, up you get and show us what 
 you can do." 
 
 I shall never forget the result. Jack and I 
 nearly had spasms laughing at it. That dog 
 leaped to his feet, ran three times around the 
 smoke-house as if the "old boy" was after him, 
 then chased himself about the door-yard, in and 
 out of the barn, up and over the wood-pile, in 
 a frenzy of delight. When he settled down at 
 our feet, he was all in. I gave him immediately 
 a hot bath with plenty of soap. He enjoyed it 
 and that night he slept on the floor of my room. 
 The next night he slept on the bed, at the foot, 
 and later, when the cold winter nights came 
 along, he crawled in under the blankets with 
 me, and from that time on had his own pillow. 
 We slept most of the time back to back, but 
 sometimes in the morning he would turn over, 
 place his feet against my back and stretch, and 
 when I looked at him reprovingly, he would 
 sneeze and laugh both with his mouth and eyes. 
 
 He was a great dog. I do not exaggerate 
 when I say he knew about every word I said to 
 him, and if I told him something he did not 
 understand he would cock his ears, look fixedly 
 at me and almost say with his eyes, "Come 
 again, I did n't get you." 
 
 Every night, when Jack and I would be com- 
 ing home from school, we would crawl up slyly 
 
 1:703 
 
to the edge of a little hill about five hundred 
 yards from our farm and peek over to see if 
 Eover was looking for us. He always was. We 
 would see him either seated on the milk-stand 
 or more frequently standing on his hind legs, 
 his paws on the rail of the picket fence, looking 
 down the road. All we had to do was to raise 
 a hand over the brow of the hill to attract his 
 attention, and he would come tearing down the 
 road to greet us. 
 
 As I have said, every real boy has his dog. 
 They all probably love them as I loved Eover, 
 but I have never seen such a wonderful soul in 
 a dog as was his. His was the great faith, the 
 love unutterable. He would have died for me 
 and enjoyed the sacrifice. He was literally 
 without fear and he did not look the part. That 
 is the strange feature of it— he certainly was 
 not blessed with a brave appearance. 
 
 Eover lives in the pleasantest memories of 
 my boyhood. I am glad I knew him, for I 
 learned many things from him, especially the 
 truth of those old sayings, "Appearances are 
 many times deceitful," and "Handsome is as 
 handsome does." I learned loyalty from him, 
 for I was ashamed of him once in public be- 
 cause he looked so mean and the boys derided 
 him ; but that day he licked a bull-dog twice his 
 size, and at night in bed I heard him growl 
 
softly as he fought again in his dreams, never 
 thinking that I, his master, had been ashamed 
 of his personal appearance, while I lay beside 
 him hating myself for my lack of loyalty. I 
 learned from him to look for my man in a man's 
 eyes, just as he looked. You could n't fool that 
 dog and look into his eyes, and he knew it. I 
 learned from him that another world exists 
 apart from our human world— the world of dogs 
 and cats and horses; that they live their lives 
 much as we do, with comparative joys and sor- 
 rows ; that they suffer pain and humiliation even 
 as we do, and that they have for death the same 
 instinctive terror we have. 
 
 In order to come to an intelligent appreci- 
 ation of animals, one must live with them and 
 become friends of theirs. To most of us a 
 canary in a cage is just a little yellow bird 
 hopping aimlessly back and forth, expressing 
 nothing important in this world. But there 
 is probably one man or one woman to whom 
 that canary is a dear and precious friend. 
 Personally I have a special weakness for ca- 
 naries and so has my wife. We are not ashamed 
 of it. "We have one now. He lives in a cage on 
 top of a china cabinet in the dining-room, where 
 he can enjoy the sunshine the greater part of 
 the day. His name is "Peter the Peep." I 
 talk to him regularly night and morning, swing 
 
 1:723 
 
Mm in his swing, play hide and seek with him 
 and make love to him, and the little creature 
 expresses in turn the greatest delight. Peter 
 the Peep has a very shrewd idea of life. He 
 goes through his little routine of duties each 
 day and adds his bit to the life of the world. 
 
 Some day, when I can live all the time in the 
 country, I am going to have another dog, per- 
 haps two dogs— an Airedale and a Boston bull, 
 if I can ever find another puppy with such 
 angelic eyes as those of Tom Johnson the Bar- 
 mecide. I have been coveting my friends' 
 Airedales for years. They are such fine dogly 
 chaps, firm on their pins, proud, courageous, 
 and possess such an absorbing desire to learn. 
 But I know now I shall never find another dog 
 soul of the fine spiritual quality possessed by 
 the soul of Eover. 
 
 n733 
 
CHAPTEB V 
 
 WILTON CEMETERY 
 
 FOUE guests who had spent the last two 
 weeks in July with us at Aspinwall Island 
 decided to return home by way of Kingston. In 
 order to make connections at that city they 
 would have to take a local traia leaving Sharbot 
 Lake at five-forty in the morning, and that 
 meant that we should have to get up at four 
 o'clock and have breakfast half an hour later. 
 Larry had agreed to come down and get them 
 in the Sharbotina. 
 
 When the maids awoke us that morning it was 
 not yet daylight, and the air was cool. After 
 dressing I went out on the eastern piazza and 
 looked for the sun. The sky was a dull gray, 
 but just over the Eagle Eocks, where the sun 
 rose, there was a bar of red above the horizon. 
 The moon looked a smoky white and the stars 
 were mere specks in the heavens. I could not 
 tell whether it would be a good day or not. But 
 at five o'clock, when our friends were ready to 
 leave, the sun appeared above the rocks, to all 
 
 1:743 
 
appearances six feet in diameter. So my wife 
 and I decided to take the Peter Pan and accom- 
 pany our guests to the train. 
 
 The Peter Pan is a twenty-one-foot canvas 
 canoe equipped with a three H.P. single cylin- 
 der motor, just cozy for two people. It slides 
 along on the water and is a delightful little boat 
 to ride in. 
 
 This morning as it moved out into the lake 
 on its way to the village we were treated to a 
 spectacle that I shall never forget. As has been 
 stated previously, the shores of Sharbot Lake 
 are indented with many bays. These bays were 
 now filled with fog, looking exactly as if these 
 compact vapors had been crowded into them so 
 as to clear the main body of the lake for our 
 trip. The sun was now wonderful to behold. 
 My wife and I exclaimed rapturously at the 
 glory of it. Its rays spread out behind us like 
 a golden fan and we realized how much beauty 
 we lost each morning by sleeping till well after 
 the sun had abandoned playing the spectacular 
 and settled down to the sober business of the 
 day. 
 
 But as we looked, the fogs, packed into the 
 bays, commenced moving out, approaching us 
 like great icebergs, and we felt that soon we 
 should be enveloped. Suddenly they stopped 
 moving horizontally and began to lift, as if 
 
Phoebus in Ms chariot had given the command, 
 ' ' Up, ye fogs, and become clouds ! " In ten min- 
 utes they were high above our heads and drift- 
 ing away in groups of friendly association. 
 
 We inhaled deeply and sighed like souls re- 
 leased from enchantment. 
 
 The day had begun. 
 
 I have thought that David, seated on the 
 mountains, must have witnessed some such sun- 
 rise when he wrote that grandest of aU his 
 Psalms: "Lift up your heads, ye gates; and 
 be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors; and the 
 King of glory shall come in. ' ' 
 
 The four guests we were seeing off were peo- 
 ple we were very fond of, and we disliked to see 
 them go. As we stood on the station platform 
 it occurred to me that we might be with them a 
 little longer if we were to accompany them as 
 far as Harrowsmith. Then we could engage a 
 livery and drive from that village to Wilton, 
 where the cemetery was in which my father 
 and mother were buried, together with Jack and 
 many of my ancestors. I had promised my wife 
 to make this trip each season for several years, 
 but there seemed never to have been time. Now 
 the occasion offered and was too tempting to be 
 refused. 
 
 It is five miles from Harrowsmith to Wilton, 
 but the narrow country road connecting these 
 
 1:763 
 
two villages is bordered with historic farms, 
 each of these farms having been granted to the 
 original owner by the King at the time of the 
 United Empire Loyalist settlement in upper 
 Canada. There were five two-hundred-acre 
 Shibley farms along this road, and of these 
 thousand acres seven hundred are now owned 
 and operated by lineal descendants of the orig- 
 inal possessors. 
 
 My grandfather drew one of the two-hun- 
 dred-acre farms, and as we came abreast of it, 
 I had the driver stop his horses while I looked 
 across the fields he had cleared, at the fine white 
 farm house replacing the log cabin in which my 
 father was born, and as I looked I was suffused 
 with a pride of ancestry and reverence for my 
 forefathers. 
 
 This grandfather was an old man when I 
 was only an infant, but I remember my grand- 
 mother very well. She used to come to visit us 
 when she was over eighty years old, driving 
 herself, for it was one of her perquisites that 
 she was to have her own horse and buggy as 
 long as she lived. 
 
 She was a very quaint little Dutch woman 
 with beautiful eyes and hair, gentle and humor- 
 ous. After each meal she would smoke a white 
 clay pipe and it was the delight of us children 
 to cut the tobacco for her and fill her pipe. She 
 
began to smoke when she was seventy-five, being 
 aflBicted slightly with asthma, and I cannot re- 
 member that I ever thought it the least bit odd 
 that she should smoke, and yet I had never seen 
 any other woman smoke. She looked so cute 
 puffing away at her pipe, all the while keeping 
 up an incessant conversation. We were de- 
 lighted when she drove through the gateway, 
 and we never left her a moment, hardly, while 
 she was with us, and we considered it a treat 
 to say our prayers at her side at night, for she 
 would pat our heads, tell us we were good chil- 
 dren and were bound to be splendid men and 
 women,— that is, if we always minded and went 
 to school. 
 
 It was she who told me about the early days 
 of the United Empire Loyalists, but that would 
 make a book in itself. 
 
 She was sixteen when she married, and 
 Grandfather was eighteen. This happened 
 shortly after he drew his farm. It was some 
 twenty miles from Lake Ontario, and in the faU 
 he located it and erected a one-room log cabin. 
 But he had no door or windows for it, or floor- 
 ing, so he left it in this crude condition, came 
 home, married her, and in the early spring he 
 and she started to take possession of their es- 
 tate with all their wedding presents and other 
 possessions. These consisted of a yoke of oxen, 
 
 1178] 
 
a sleigh, a table, and a few chairs, a stove, bed- 
 ding, dishes, a plough, an axe, a saw, and the like. 
 
 It was late in the afternoon when they arrived 
 at their home in the wilderness. There being 
 no door or windows, the snow had drifted in and 
 this had to be shovelled ont as a beginning. 
 They brought with them some boards to make a 
 door and window frames, and these they placed 
 on the ground as a floor for the time being. 
 They set np the bed and the stove that evening, 
 hung quilts over the door and tacked sheets over 
 the windows. Then they cooked supper and 
 went to bed. 
 
 Imagine it ! 
 
 Those were the kind of people that were our 
 ancestors, we who are of the old Canadian and 
 American stock. 
 
 Xo wonder when we reached the Wilton 
 Cemetery that I stood with head uncovered rev- 
 erently before the graves of my grandparents. 
 They were aU there in a group, and my 
 mother's parents were exactly the same kind of 
 people except that they were English, having 
 come to Canada from the old Puritan Colony at 
 Xew Bedford, Mass. But I looked with par- 
 ticular and loving reverence upon the grave- 
 stone of my grandmother and read, among other 
 words, these : ' ' Catherine, wife of John Shibley, 
 died March 7, 1887, in her ninety-sixth year." 
 
She was the mother of ten children, nine of 
 whom grew to manhood or womanhood. Each 
 of the sons was given a farm and each of the 
 daughters her household furniture as a wedding 
 present, and this old couple, John and Cath- 
 erine, had started their domestic career exactly 
 as I have narrated. 
 
 The Chinese and Japanese are right. Man 
 should do reverence to his ancestors. 
 
 But we had paused before the old homestead 
 when I began talking about Grandmother, and we 
 shall go back there and continue our journey, for 
 I want you to approach the cemetery as I did and 
 with somewhat the same mental impressions. 
 
 Eemember the sunrise, the pulling out and 
 lifting of the fog banks, the gentle sorrow at 
 parting from our dear friends, the trip down the 
 historic road past the royal farms, and keep in 
 mind that this was a beautiful summer day in 
 harvest-time : farmers at work in the fields, the 
 air filled with the melody of the reaper and the 
 whetted scythe, humid with the birth exhala- 
 tions of a million butterflies, droning with the 
 wing-beat of honey bees rushing tirelessly 
 about. Conceive pictures of rustic beauty on 
 every hand: young women on the milk stands 
 washing the bright cans just returned from the 
 cheese factory, mothers standing in the door- 
 ways of farm houses with infants clutching lov- 
 
ingly at their faces, cMldren seated in little school 
 houses, busy trying to forget the loveliness of 
 the world outside, little aproned misses and 
 barefooted boys; and our livery team jog, jog, 
 jogging along, touched with the whip only when 
 it is necessary to remove a fly. 
 
 Then if you have absorbed all these influ- 
 ences, you are fitted to arrive with my wife and 
 me at the cemetery hill and overlook the peace- 
 ful field of the dead, sloping to the south, its 
 fences hedged with late roses, the entire field 
 spangled with flowers. 
 
 My first thought as I looked over the monu- 
 mented and flowered field was that if one has to 
 die, it is well to be buried in such a sylvan spot, 
 where there is such an immense serenity in na- 
 ture, so absolute a peace. 
 
 But I forgot about the poetry of the day and 
 the scene as I paused at Jack's grave. 
 
 It is fated that we shall have, each one of us, 
 one spot more tender than any other in our 
 hearts. When the thought of Jack, my brother, 
 my playfellow, my confessor, my truest friend, 
 who died when he was only thirty-six, in the 
 prime of his greatness of character and of his 
 success, and who lies here in this Wilton Ceme- 
 tery just on the other side of the stone where 
 I one day shall lie,— when the thought of him 
 comes to me, my tender spot is touched. 
 
 [813 
 
There are other loves in life, but no love such 
 as the love of brothers of near age, who slept 
 together in the same cradle, danced together on 
 their father's knee, fought together as school 
 boys, back to back in a deathless alliance 
 against the world, who as youths roomed to- 
 gether in cheap boarding houses, dreamed 
 together of success, and struggled for that suc- 
 cess later on side by side. 
 
 I wish to write, as a tribute to him, that he 
 possessed the most attractive personality of 
 any man I have ever known. He was not per- 
 fect by any means, but he was entirely lacking 
 in petty faults. He had a grand way with him. 
 He carved a fortune out of the air and laughed 
 at the fantasy of it. His chief delight was to 
 give to those he loved. When he was a parcel 
 boy in a dry-goods store getting $2.75 a week, 
 he brought every week a present to his mother. 
 This was characteristic of him throughout his 
 life. He had a genius for money-making and he 
 cared nothing for money. He was ambitious to 
 the verge of absurdity and he killed himself by 
 hard work. He possessed a craving for power 
 I was never able to appreciate, for to my mind 
 power and fame are the sirens that lure men to 
 death. I want none of them, but Jack did. He 
 wanted to be a great financier, to dominate men, 
 and he would have gone far if he had had the 
 
strength. But Mother Nature is pitiless when 
 we transgress her laws. She mocks at ambition 
 when manifested in her children. She is no 
 respecter of fame. She pulls down those who 
 seek to climb too fast, as she pulled Jack down 
 to her bosom in this Wilton Cemetery. He was 
 two years younger than myself, but he has most 
 influenced my life of any one I have known. 
 There are times when I would be selfish and say 
 "No" to an appeal for help. There are times 
 when I would sag back in the traces and say to 
 myself, "What 's the use?" Times, too, when 
 I am tempted to be content with small, safe en- 
 terprises rather than attempt big, hazardous 
 things ; and at all such times Jack comes to me 
 and I would be ashamed not to write the check, 
 not to keep going ahead manfully, and not to 
 follow along the road he loved, the broad high- 
 way of business adventure. 
 
 His presence is uncanny at times. He had a 
 sharp, quick way with him, and used always to 
 pronounce my name with a jerky rising accent 
 when he called me. Night after night through all 
 the years since his death I awake from sleep with 
 a start, roused by that sharp call of his, a call 
 always as if he were in trouble and needed me. 
 
 I know this beautiful day that he is not in 
 trouble, wherever that wonderful soul of his is. 
 He is of the elect young men who die in the 
 
 183-2 
 
full flower of their years, and such souls the 
 Lord God must delight to associate with. 
 
 I am a passionate lover of life, but I have 
 never feared death. Life is very beautiful, but 
 death also has its charms. Socrates expressed 
 better than any other philosopher the delightful 
 possibility of the hereafter. My thought is to 
 take our fill of life while we have life, and we 
 shall then be most ready for death when it 
 comes. 
 
 And it will come. One of these days I shall lie 
 here with Jack and my father and mother, my 
 grandparents and all the other Shibleys and 
 Warners. Folks will come along and read my 
 name on this granite boulder and they will pass 
 on. Not one of them will ever feel as I have 
 felt, or think as I have thought, or realize how 
 much I enjoyed living. Nor will they care. 
 They will be living their own lives, with their 
 own impressions and thoughts, and then they 
 will lie here also or in some similar spot, but 
 nature will remaLn. There will be sunshine and 
 song of birds and hum of bees and odor of flow- 
 ers and ripple of water, day after day without 
 end, for myriads of years. 
 
 Yet, how intensely they who died had lived ! 
 How much they loved 1 How sweet to them was 
 the breath of morning and the laughter of first- 
 born children ; how they delighted in life ! 
 
 C843 
 
And there was my motlier's grave. 
 
 I am an optimist as to the future of mankind 
 because I knew my own mother so well, and 
 because I believe there have been, are now, and 
 will continue to be, millions of mothers as sweet, 
 as gentle, as unselfish, and as pure as she. 
 
 Mothers of men! I wonder sometimes if 
 women realize how much men reverence mother- 
 hood. This reverential respect is the holiest of 
 all their thoughts. Men kneel in awe before the 
 enshrined Madonna of the world. To them she 
 is the apotheosis of all beauty, of all goodness, 
 of all purity, of all sacredness. They realize 
 that their natures are too coarse to conceive the 
 sublime fervor of a mother's love, but men are 
 keenly sympathetic and tender-hearted, and 
 they appreciate this love. 
 
 It is a purification of one's self to think of 
 one's mother. It is like going down to bathe in 
 the pool of Siloam. 
 
 My mother was a mild, soft-spoken, quaint 
 little woman, as gentle a human being as ever 
 drew breath. She had humor and she loved 
 beautiful things. But her opportunities in life 
 were few. She never heard grand opera or a 
 symphony, though every nerve in her body was 
 tuned to music. She had few, if any, luxuries, 
 her whole life long, and yet hers was a nature 
 that craved such delights. 
 
 CSS] 
 
She was at least fifty-five years of age before 
 she even had the opportunity to go to a theater. 
 Jack and I took her the first time, and we were 
 about as green to the mysteries of theatrical 
 sensation as she. She sat between us, holding 
 a hand of each, and she revelled in sensuous en- 
 joyment of the play. I felt every vibration of 
 her body. 
 
 All my thoughts of my mother are pleasant 
 thoughts. If she had only lived until we boys 
 had got on our feet so that we could have given 
 her a good time in her old age! How often I 
 have wished this! For instance, suppose she 
 could come to visit us at Aspinwall Island as 
 Grandmother Catherine used to visit my father ? 
 What joy that would be ! 
 
 But that cannot be. She lies here in the Wil- 
 ton Cemetery, by the side of the man she loved, 
 and I dream my dreams. * ' Well, Mother mine, ' ' 
 I say with resignation, "there was not much to 
 this great world beyond the fields, after all. I 
 have gone up and down it. I have tasted most 
 of the pleasures of life, sometimes just for your 
 account, and, believe me, they were not wonder- 
 fully sweet. I will tell you all about them some- 
 time in the future when we meet in the Land of 
 the Blue Bird. We shall talk it over, and I am 
 inclined to think we shall agree that those were 
 the best days when you sat in your little rocker 
 
by the kitchen window, knitting and listening to 
 the song of your husband while driving his 
 team through the yard. That old kitchen was 
 lovely with sunshine in the long summer days, 
 was it not? And how dainty was the perfume 
 from your sweet apple tree near the window at 
 which you always sat ! ' ' 
 
 There was a song sparrow that day in the 
 tree whose branches reached out over my 
 mother's grave. It was perched on the very 
 top of a small branch that swayed up and down, 
 and the bird swayed and sang the song of its 
 heart. It aroused me from my reverie, and I 
 moved onward, reading the names of men and 
 women I had known when a little boy. Here 
 were all the old neighbors: the good woman 
 who used to give me a honey sandwich whenever 
 I went to see her ; the old man who used to drive 
 half lying down in his buggy because his spine 
 was weak ; the man who used to build the fires 
 in the school house, and the preacher who scared 
 me with sermons about Hell. 
 
 ' ' Friends, ' ' I said to them mentally, as I sat 
 on a mound on the hill, and looked down over 
 the graves, "the world is going on just the 
 same. There is the same joy and the same sor- 
 row as when you were here. There is love and 
 laughter and anger and despair. The rain fails 
 in the spring and the harvest is blighted, or the 
 
fields sway golden with yellow grain. You have 
 merged with the mysteries and we who live 
 know so little of life. The chain is pulling, 
 drawing us down to you. Let us be worthy, as 
 you were worthy, to lie here year after year 
 without end, our names proclaimed to all men 
 as having lived, done our life work, and died, 
 men and women whose children shall want to 
 sleep beside them when their tale of days is 
 told." 
 
 CSS] 
 
ELIZABETH 
 
CHAPTEE VI 
 
 THE WOODCHUCK 
 
 AS I have related, one of the most picturesque 
 -^i- features of Aspinwall Island is an im- 
 mense boulder about sixty feet from the south- 
 eastern corner of the cottage, and around which 
 John Antoine has made a bed of dwarf nastur- 
 tiums. When we arrived at the Island on July 
 2, a year ago, these nasturtiums were just com- 
 mencing to bloom and we saw that the bed of 
 flowers would be very beautiful. 
 
 The following morning, as I sat on the piazza 
 smoking my pipe, enjoying the warm sunshine 
 and listening to the birds singing as they flitted 
 among the branches of the great basswood tree 
 immediately before me, I noticed a woodchuck 
 slowly steal forth from a cleft in the boulder. 
 He was a fine, handsome fellow, evidently a 
 young one, as his hair was bright and unfaded. 
 I called to the Lady of the Island and pointed 
 him out to her when she reached my side. He 
 was seated on his haunches eating grass-blades 
 in a dainty manner. She was delighted with the 
 
 [893 
 
woodchuck and thought he would bring us good 
 luck. 
 
 When John arrived in his dugout, I told him 
 about the woodchuck and showed him his nest 
 ia the rocks. John was surprised. He had not 
 seen the chap and told me he must have come 
 over from the mainland within the last day or 
 so. Then he shook his head doubtfully. "We 
 shall have to get rid of him," he said, "or he 
 will destroy the nasturtiums." 
 
 ' ' He won 't eat the nasturtium leaves, ' ' I said. 
 ' ' See, none of them so far are touched. ' ' 
 
 "He likes nasturtiums," John insisted, "and 
 has come over to live here for that very rea- 
 son." 
 
 "Well," said I, "let us wait and see." 
 
 The following morning no nasturtiums had 
 been interfered with and I felt certain we should 
 get on finely with the woodchuck. He seemed a 
 fearless fellow, for he went about his business 
 without paying much attention to any of us, 
 and in the afternoon he slept with his head pro- 
 jecting from the rocks, lord of his domicile and 
 unabashed. 
 
 But the following morning havoc had been 
 wrought among the nasturtiums. A place about 
 two feet square had been nicely trimmed, and I 
 knew that the woodchuck was guilty. 
 
 I realized that we had to decide at once be- 
 
 c9on 
 
tween the animal and the flowers. Then I mor- 
 alized upon the situation. The woodchuck was 
 undoubtedly well within his rights. He had 
 taken a trip of adventure, swimming from the 
 mainland to Aspinwall Island, and he had dis- 
 covered there a beautiful nest in the rocks, 
 and just before his door, planted by his good 
 angel, toothsome leaves in abundance. So he 
 rejoiced and was content. He had been born into 
 this world for no other purpose, so far as he 
 could see, but to eat and sleep. Therefore he 
 had a right to eat and sleep. He was not a 
 destroyer of his kind, but a vegetarian, and he 
 had no ill will against anything in creation. He 
 saw me sitting on the piazza or walking about 
 the Island. "He is neither a dog, a fox, nor a 
 wolf," he reasoned. "He has scented me but 
 he does not bother me. He has his home in the 
 cottage just as I have mine in the rocks. He 
 does not eat woodchuck, so why should I fear 
 him?" 
 
 He did not realize that nasturtiums were not 
 a natural product of the earth immediately 
 about the boulder in which he lived. He did not 
 know that John Antoine had lugged the soil in 
 this flower bed from a muck swamp on the main- 
 land with much sweat of his brow, and that Mrs. 
 John had planted seeds in this bed one by one, 
 bending over laboriously to do this. There was 
 
the sun, his to enjoy; the water, his to drink; 
 leaves and roots, his to eat; all were alike to 
 him, the gift of God. 
 
 Now, there was no way on earth for me to 
 reason with this woodchuck on the question of 
 his rights and mine. He was doing me an in- 
 jury, even if he was unaware of it, and I decided 
 that he must go. 
 
 My wife and I talked it over and we came to 
 the conclusion that the best way to evict him 
 was to get between him and his home in the 
 rocks and then chase him from the Island. John 
 joined in the conference and agreed with us that 
 this was the best method of procedure, although 
 he did think the quickest way to settle Mr. 
 Woodchuck was with a shotgun. We would not 
 hear of this. Why, there he lay while we talked, 
 sleeping innocently in the sunshine on his own 
 doorstep. 
 
 So we manceuvered. The day previous we 
 could have placed ourselves between him and 
 the boulder half a dozen times, but this day he 
 did not emerge from his home further than its 
 portal. He was gorged with nasturtium leaves. 
 
 The next morning we found another meal had 
 been taken from the nasturtium bed, and when 
 John came over and saw the devastation his 
 brow darkened and I saw he was grieved, for 
 this bed was the joy of his heart. 
 
 n923 
 

 
 ?|" -^v- 
 
 AMELIA AND THE NASTURTIUMS 
 
Larry and I were to go for the milk in the 
 Peter Pan, and I told John to keep a close watch 
 on the woodchuck and circumvent him, if pos- 
 sible. So we left him. 
 
 On our return we found John cleaning out 
 the punt, which he had hauled up on the beach 
 near the boat house. 
 
 ' ' I got him, ' ' he said laconically. 
 
 "Did you?" I inquired eagerly. "Did you 
 drive him from the Island?" 
 
 ' ' No, ' ' he returned. ' ' He 's in the bow of my 
 canoe yonder. ' ' 
 
 I walked over to John's dugout and in the bow 
 I saw the woodchuck. He was lying on his back 
 in a half-sitting posture, and his forefeet were 
 crossed over his chest just like two little clasped 
 hands. A clot of blood lay at the very tip of his 
 nose. 
 
 "Why, you 've shot him," I cried, with a 
 genuine feeling of grief. 
 
 John grinned. "You see, I had to," he said. 
 "He just would n't come out, but lay there in 
 his hole and watched me as I raked the lawn. 
 So I got the little rifle and I caught him exactly 
 between the eyes. He never moved." 
 
 It was done. I think I can truthfully say that 
 never for a moment did I ever think of killing 
 that woodchuck. If he had eaten every nastur- 
 tium plant, I should not have killed him. I in- 
 
 1:933 
 
tended only to drive Mm from the Island. I had 
 a right to do that because he was destroying 
 property of mine on which labor and thought 
 had been expended, and there was plenty of 
 room for him and quantities of provender on the 
 mainland. 
 
 I sat in the big rocker and thought deeply. 
 A sin had been committed on this beautiful 
 Island, and God knew it just as I knew it, and 
 I realized that I was responsible for that sin. 
 If I had forbidden John to kill the woodchuck, 
 he would not have disobeyed me. I was the lieu- 
 tenant of the Creator as far as His little crea- 
 tures on Aspinwall Island were concerned, and 
 I had allowed one of the finest of these little 
 ones to be slaughtered. 
 
 It was only the first week in July. Spring 
 was still manifest. How sweet was the perfume 
 of the air! How genial was the sunshine! It 
 had been such a long, cold winter, and the 
 woodchuck had not dared to come out even on 
 Candlemas day. He had so delighted in the 
 toothsome roots when the frost left the ground. 
 He had shed his old fur and polished up his 
 claws. He was a young brave ready for love- 
 making when he should meet his mate. All the 
 long summer was ahead of him, and that glori- 
 ous autumn-time when the earth would be filled 
 with tubers. The paradisical joys of the feast in 
 
the turnip patch by moonlight, the delights of 
 the corn-field, all these were before him. 
 
 Then out of the silence came this wireless 
 message, impacting coldly and clearly upon my 
 intelligence, "That woodchuck was beloved of 
 Me, the Creator of all things. He had his right 
 to life within the laws of Nature, just as you 
 have your right. He did nothing to deserve 
 death, and you know that he did nothing for 
 which to forfeit his life. I hold you responsible 
 for the loss of this creature which I loved." 
 
 But the woodchuck is dead. He lies there in 
 the bow of John's boat, his forepaws crossed 
 over his breast, like a baby asleep. And the 
 sun is smiling and the birds are dancing in the 
 trees. I am humbled in the presence of the 
 Creator, for I was my brother's keeper and I 
 neglected to protect him. 
 
 And grief for the untimely death of that 
 woodchuck is still in my heart. 
 
 1:953 
 
CHAPTEE VII 
 
 THE BLUE SQUAB 
 
 THEEE is a pair of swallows which live ia 
 the boat house. They have roomed there 
 each simmier for years. In the daytime they 
 sit side by side on the edge of the break-water, 
 preen themselves, yawn and loaf in a thoroughly 
 contented way. They rear their young, start 
 them off in the world with their blessing, doubt- 
 less, and then return to the felicity of connubial 
 companionship. 
 
 On the rocks along the shore north of the 
 boat house an old lady teeter-taU snipe has es- 
 tablished a lookout station, from which she 
 observes the movements of everybody in her 
 vicinity, with the object of giving prompt warn- 
 ing to her young, who travel up and down the 
 beach and in and out of the willow bushes. She 
 is a very timorous creature and shrieks at the 
 first sign of danger, and this has become such 
 a habit with her that even when no one is about 
 except Larry and myself, smoking in the door- 
 way of the boat house, she chatters and scolds 
 
like a garrulous nurse-maid whose charges play 
 along the paths in a city park. Then, tired of 
 this, she settles down on a boulder to rest, and 
 mumbles in her sleep. I have watched her do 
 this many times through a pair of marine 
 glasses. 
 
 There is nothing in nature more cunning than 
 one of these baby snipe. One day, while its 
 mother was off guard, one of these little chaps 
 wandered up on the Island and was trotting 
 about having a glorious adventure, when a num- 
 ber of us came down the path to take a ride in 
 the motor boat. Seeing us, it was in a panic 
 irmnediately, but instead of rushing for the 
 shore, it crept in behind the head of a boulder 
 and played 'possum. There it lay huddled up 
 by the gray stone, its eyes wide open, but never 
 moving an eyelid. One of the ladies took it up 
 in her hand. Its heart throbbed at a great rate, 
 but it showed no fear. It still maintained its 
 rigidity of body. It was placed on the sand 
 near the shore, and the moment we left it 
 alone it started for the willow bushes, crying 
 for its mother, a thoroughly frightened little 
 snipe. It will hesitate to wander abroad an- 
 other time. 
 
 Birds are such quaint creatures, and so mar- 
 vellously intelligent. They have such dangers 
 to encounter in life, and yet they seem always 
 
so happy and debonair. Nature does not coddle 
 even the most gentle and beautiful of her crea- 
 tures. I often wonder if bird lovers are fool- 
 ishly sentimental about their feathered friends. 
 Hunters laugh at us, and these hunters are de- 
 lightful people in the main, sturdy out-of-door 
 folk, who think there is no pleasure equal to 
 shooting quail or partridge over a good dog. I 
 could not do it. Whether it is a weakness in 
 me or silly sentiment, I do not know, but I sim- 
 ply could not bring myself to fire into a flock of 
 quail. 
 
 One day John and I were out on a tramp over 
 the hills to the east. He was leading and I fol- 
 lowed, lost in thought, when I observed him 
 push out his left hand slowly behind him, and 
 I knew he wished me to stop. As I did so he 
 crept up to some bushes by the path, parted 
 them carefully and looked in. Then the same 
 hand indicated that I was to creep up and look 
 also. As I peered over his shoulder, I saw fully 
 a dozen young partridges huddled together, 
 their eyes fixed upon us. John had stalked them 
 exactly as does a pointer. When we leaned 
 backward, the birds rushed through the bushes 
 and flew away with a whirr of wings. That was 
 a delightful incident in our tramp. 
 
 We are creatures of impressions. I shot a 
 red squirrel once as it sat on the limb of a hick- 
 
 [983 
 
ory tree eating a nut. I was quite a small boy, 
 out with my first gun, and I blew that beautiful 
 red squirrel all to pieces. It made me sick and 
 I swore then and there never again to go hunt- 
 ing. 
 
 But the blue squab in the loft above the pig 
 pen impressed me most. 
 
 Some years ago I was visiting a friend in 
 northern New York State, and we arranged to 
 take an automobile run some twenty miles into 
 the country to look over a canning factory in 
 which we were both interested. 
 
 When I awoke on the day of this trip, I was 
 pleased to find the sun shining brightly. Its 
 amber rays, peculiar to early October, crept far 
 into the room, intent upon making amends for 
 the gloomy weather of the preceding day. 
 
 As we bowled along the State road, we looked 
 over the fields right and left, observing the con- 
 dition of the farms. The harvest had been 
 gathered in greater part, and now Only shocks 
 of corn and buckwheat and such vegetables as 
 cabbage and pumpkins were in evidence. Ap- 
 ples were being picked. We saw great heaps of 
 this fruit in many orchards. 
 
 "It has been a good year," I said to my 
 friend, and he smiled as he answered, "God is 
 always good to us in northern New York." 
 
 At that moment we passed a large flock of 
 
 C993 
 
turkeys along the road, and he called my atten- 
 tion to them. 
 
 "Toothsome chaps, those!" he said with zest. 
 "They wiU be fat and nice for Thanksgiving 
 time." 
 
 Just a hazy film of a thought passed through 
 my brain as he made this remark. It was some- 
 what as follows : 
 
 "Thanksgiving time, that 's in November, 
 and this is October. Those proud young turkeys 
 are under sentence of death, wanderiag ia the 
 amber autumn sunshine,— under sentence of 
 death." 
 
 This melancholy thought fled, however, as I 
 listened to my friend teU me about the people 
 who lived on the farms we passed,— splendid, 
 God-fearing, intelligent people, all of them, — 
 thrifty people who had money in the bank,— a 
 high type of American citizenship. 
 
 His words pleased me. I was glad that my 
 fellow-men had made such wonderful advances 
 in civilization, for it was only a comparatively 
 short time ago, a little more than a century, 
 when the savage Five Nations hunted over these 
 fields and celebrated their barbarous rites on 
 many a spot where now stands a Christian 
 homestead. 
 
 Many hundreds of people were at work at the 
 factory when we reached it. The manager told 
 
 nioo] 
 
us that they had already put up over one hun- 
 dred and fifty thousand cans of peas, and ahnost 
 an equal amount of string beans. They had had 
 more corn than they could attend to, and now 
 they were busy with tomatoes, pumpkins and 
 beans. As we walked through the storehouses 
 we were told they held over four hundred thou- 
 sand cases of canned goods, each case holding 
 two dozen cans. 
 
 "What a lot of food for the people!" I 
 thought. It was good food, too, canned under 
 the most modern sanitary system, and all gath- 
 ered from the soil, Nature's reward for man's 
 labor and intelligence. 
 
 The manager then suggested that we visit the 
 two-thousand-acre farm near the factory, which 
 the company owned, and we spent half an hour 
 travelling in the automobile among the fields. 
 Everything was gathered but the pumpkins and 
 squashes. There were acres upon acres of these, 
 lying thick upon the ground. 
 
 Presently we came to the farm buildings and 
 to the cottage near them, where the manager 
 lived during the summer months. He had not 
 yet moved his family into town, and we found 
 his wife and two of his hired men making gro- 
 tesque lanterns from pumpkins, in preparation 
 for a harvest party they were giving to their 
 friends and neighbors the following evening. 
 
They sat on the kitchen stoop in the noon 
 sunshine and a rosy-cheeked child played 
 among them. It was a charming picture. We 
 were invited to have a drink of fresh cider and 
 to eat snow apples, just taken from the trees. 
 The manager's wife insisted that we take lunch 
 with her, and we gladly consented, for it was de- 
 lightful out there among the red barns, with the 
 smell of ripened fruit in the air, and that won- 
 derful amber sunshine pervading everything. 
 
 I took the rosy, fat baby on my lap and ca- 
 ressed it. "You are a lucky fellow," I said to 
 the manager, "to have such a beautiful place 
 in which to spend your summers, where every- 
 thing is full of life and Nature is so lavish of 
 her gifts." 
 
 He replied that he was absolutely happy. He 
 had great care and responsibilities, but they 
 held him down to his place in the world. He 
 loved to see growing things about him. He 
 loved animals particularly, and this suggested 
 to him that he show us some Arkansas mules 
 which he had purchased that year to replace 
 horses on the farm. 
 
 We went to the barn to look at those mules. 
 They were giants, many of them standing over 
 sixteen hands high, and with such long faces! 
 I rubbed their noses caressingly as I passed 
 them. Coming out at the rear of the barn, we 
 
 [:io2 3 
 
heard the grunting of pigs, and the manager 
 asked ns if we would like to see the hogs, hun- 
 dreds of them, in the sties near by. 
 
 As we leaned on the fence watching the pigs, 
 which were lying about in every position, in 
 sensuous enjoyment of the sunshine, grunting 
 good-naturedly at us, I heard my friend say to 
 the manager with a laugh as he pointed to the 
 pigs : ' ' They will all be in pork-and-beans cans 
 and scattered throughout the United States 
 presently. ' ' 
 
 "Yes," the manager replied, with a yawn, 
 "we '11 have 'em all canned by the middle of 
 November. ' ' 
 
 I confess this jarred me. The incident of the 
 turkeys was only a vaporish impression, but I 
 had just been patting one red pig on the head, 
 and he was a mighty handsome pig. Golden 
 bristles were mingled with the coarser red along 
 his spine and his eyes were expressive and de- 
 cidedly friendly. 
 
 That pig and I could have established a warm 
 friendship had we greater opportunity to look 
 into each other's eyes. He was rather a little 
 fellow, too, slim and shapely. 
 
 I felt my heart come into my throat as I heard 
 the remark about the pork and beans, and I 
 turned away from the red pig with a sigh. 
 
 As I did so I heard the flapping of wings, and, 
 
 nio33 
 
looking up, I saw, seemingly, thousands of pig- 
 eons on the roof of the sty. 
 
 "We raise our squabs in the loft above the pig 
 pen," the manager said, adding, "Have you 
 ever seen a squab house?" 
 
 We replied instantly that we never had and 
 were invited to follow him up a ladder into the 
 loft above the sty. It was a dusty and dirty 
 place we saw when we emerged from the trap 
 door into the loft. Instantly the pigeons flew 
 forth and we were left sole occupants of the 
 place, as I thought ; but presently I was aware 
 of a pair of eyes looking wonderingly at me, 
 and I saw a half -feathered young pigeon in one 
 of the many boxes about the room. 
 
 The manager saw him also and remarked, 
 "There seems to be only one squab to show 
 you. ' ' He showed us, however, several nests on 
 which the mother pigeons had been sitting when 
 we entered. There was also one nest of little 
 furry creatures just out of the shell. 
 
 I was interested, however, in that solitary 
 squab with the fixed, pathetic stare, and I drew 
 near to its nest and looked at it. The crest of 
 its head was still covered with pin feathers, but 
 its wings had almost perfected themselves. 
 They were a gray blue of most delicate shading, 
 and I said to myself, ' ' That will be a very beau- 
 tiful pigeon when he grows up. ' ' 
 
 1:1043 
 
He could not fly yet, and, of course, had never 
 left the nest, but just sat there looking forth at 
 the little -world in the dovecote, forming those 
 charming blue feathers, gradually growing 
 larger and stronger. He could see, beyond the 
 holes which served as windows to the dovecote, 
 a peculiar, sparkling yellow radiance that never 
 entered where he was. 
 
 He did not know what that was out there 
 moving upon the face of things, but I felt that 
 he was assured that presently he would fare 
 forth through the windows out into that yellow 
 glory and revel in it, as he tried his wings, and 
 that he would mount up in it and glorify his 
 Creator in an ecstasy of flight. 
 
 I could see all this in the blue squab's eyes. 
 His surroundings were rather sordid, decidedly 
 dirty and ill-smelling, but just beyond the win- 
 dows were purity and sunshine, and he was 
 resigned to wait. I smiled internally as I thus 
 thought out the destiny of the blue squab, for 
 surely it was a beautiful one, to fare forth from 
 so dark and foul a place into sweetness and sun- 
 shine, and fly up above the trees and voyage 
 over broad fields and make love on the roofs of 
 tall barns. 
 
 My friend and the manager had stood some 
 distance from me as I thus speculated on the 
 destiny of the blue squab. They now ap- 
 
proached me. "He will be ready for the table 
 in a few days now," the manager said, looking 
 at the blue squab, which continued to regard us 
 with a fixed stare. 
 
 "What!" I cried. "You don't mean to say 
 that what we call squab are pigeons as young 
 as this?" 
 
 ' ' Why, yes, ' ' he returned, and looked at me as 
 if wondering at my ignorance, ' ' the squab you 
 eat at the fine hotels are seldom over a month 
 old. If they fly even a little, they become 
 tough. ' ' 
 
 "But, man," I said passionately, "look at 
 this helpless creature. It is not food. It is just 
 incarnated childhood. It 's a baby creature. 
 See, its feathers are formed only on the wings, 
 and you say in three or four days it will be 
 ready for the table. ' ' 
 
 * ' That 's true, ' ' he answered. ' ' He 's a good, 
 fair specimen, too, that blue squab. He will 
 make a delicate morsel for a chorus lady." 
 Then he laughed. 
 
 As we descended the stairs he said, with a 
 shrug of his shoulders, as if he, too, had had 
 some pitying thought, "They don't get a run 
 for their money— squabs don't." 
 
 We had a delicious luncheon and presently 
 were rolling homeward between the autumn 
 fields. I took the train an hour later for New 
 
 ClOG] 
 
York, and tried to concentrate my mind on a 
 book that had been given me to read, "Crime 
 and Punishment," by a celebrated Eussian 
 author. 
 
 I did not make much progress in the story of 
 the sickly-minded boy who killed an old woman 
 for money, because the eyes of that blue squab 
 came between me and the printed text. I could 
 see it as I see it now, seated there in its straw 
 nest in the dovecote, looking fixedly forth, with 
 the push of ten million years behind that stare. 
 
 Nature, after an evolution so long and tire- 
 some that the human mind cannot conceive it, 
 had perfected the rock pigeon, the common an- 
 cestor of all the pigeon family, a marvellous 
 work, worthy the admiration of every intelli- 
 gence. 
 
 She had set myriad cells working in harmony, 
 bone cells, flesh cells, blood cells, brain cells, 
 countless numbers of them, and now these myr- 
 midons of hers were hustling to get that blue 
 squab out into the sunshine so that he in his 
 beauty and delight of life might glorify God; 
 and these cells had toiled night and day un- 
 ceasingly, absolutely in ignorance, however, 
 that just at the moment of transfiguration, just 
 when perfection was reached, a warm-hearted 
 gentleman like my friend the manager would 
 enter the dovecote, and without an unkind 
 
thought in his mind, twist the neck of the blue 
 squab and silence forever all those life cells, 
 and Grod would look in vain for a certain blue 
 squab of whose birth He was well aware, filled 
 with triumphant life, mounting up to Him on 
 pale blue wings, tinted most beautifully. 
 
 When I see squab on the bill-of-f are hereafter, 
 I shall think of those sad eyes that will never 
 come to a realization of life, and to say the least, 
 I shall hesitate. 
 
 closn 
 
CHAPTBB VIII 
 
 THE BAKKING SNAKES 
 
 A BOUT two miles northwest of Sharbot Lake, 
 -^^ on a somewhat higher elevation, lies White 
 Lake, so called because its bottom, where vis- 
 ible, is composed of white silt or marl. A tiny 
 creek connects these two bodies of water, but I 
 did not know this creek was navigable with a 
 canoe until John Antoine told me that Pete 
 Sharbot used it frequently when he went salmon 
 fishing ia White Lake. 
 
 It appeared that White Lake is a deep 
 pocket among the rocks, undoubtedly an old 
 crater, and that in the cool depth, one hundred 
 and fifty feet below the surface, live salmon 
 of heroic size. John himself had never caught 
 salmon in this water, but Pete Sharbot had been 
 very successful there. Pete had told him of the 
 wonderful fish he had brought to the surface in 
 White Lake,— giant salmon so powerful that 
 when they felt the sunlight strike their eyes, 
 they just gave one heave and a roll and away 
 they went. It seems Pete Sharbot made 
 
 Clog 3 
 
a specialty of fishing and trapping in White 
 Lake, and had told John so many convincing 
 tales of the attractions of that body of water 
 that the latter showed a trace of interest, and 
 even suggested to me that it might be a good 
 idea for him and me some fine day to take the 
 canoe and a minnow pail stocked with choice 
 bait and capture a few of those large salmon. 
 
 Finally the day came, and about eight o 'clock 
 in the morning John and I were paddling 
 through the lily-pads of the little creek, in some 
 places shoving ourselves through the ooze that 
 formed bars in the stream. As we crept along, 
 the silence was broken by the snort of surprise 
 made by big bull-frogs here and there, as they 
 became aware of our approach, and dived into 
 the water. We stole up on one veteran, fast 
 asleep on a bunch of lily-pads, and I was just 
 about to pat him on the back with the paddle 
 when he opened his eyes, ejaculated a fright- 
 ened plop-plop, and splashed into the creek. I 
 turned and looked at John, who had the stern 
 paddle. A smile of exquisite enjoyment lit up 
 his swarthy face. "He knows me," he said 
 softly. ' ' I have almost had him in my bag half 
 a dozen times. ' ' 
 
 It was fascinating paddling up this tiny 
 stream, following its many twists and turns, 
 past the spawning grounds of the pike, through 
 
 Clio 3 
 
little pools where poUiwogs flourished, among 
 reeds on the top of which bobolinks swayed 
 and sung, near logs where mud turtles dreamed 
 away the hours basking in the sun, a regular 
 holy of holies of the wilderness. 
 
 When we reached White Lake I fished and 
 John paddled. We chose the likeliest places, 
 and we tried various depths, John, as always, 
 observing the shores and the run of the reefs, 
 but we never got a strike. For two hours we 
 cirfeunmavigated White Lake, crossed and re- 
 crossed it, but Pete Sharbot's big salmon would 
 have none of us. So we searched for a spot to 
 land and have our luncheon. This spot we dis- 
 covered on the north shore of the lake beneath 
 a broad-limbed white pine tree. I really was 
 not disappointed in the least because I had not 
 caught a salmon, for the morning had been so 
 delightful. We made tea and ate what the maids 
 had given us with relish and appreciation. 
 Then I lit a cigar and stretched myself out on 
 the pine needles on my back with my head on 
 my cap and smoked, at peace with the world and 
 enamoured of life. 
 
 John never smokes. He did years ago, but 
 gave it up because, as he told me once, it caused 
 him so much annoyance. When he had his pipe 
 with him, he would discover that he had no to- 
 bacco, and if he had tobacco, it usually hap- 
 
 cm 3 
 
pened that lie had forgotten Ms pipe. Then, 
 again, he had found himself in the woods with 
 both pipe and tobacco, but no matches. This 
 disgusted him, and he decided to rid himself of 
 this cause of mental irritation. Serenity of 
 mind John esteems as man's greatest blessing. 
 
 So I smoked and dreamed while John sat 
 looking across White Lake and listening to the 
 many voices wirelessing constantly. 
 
 After a while he broke the silence by remark- 
 ing that he had not visited this lake since Simon 
 Badore and he had been up here hunting ' ' gin- 
 shun" root. 
 
 "What 's 'ginshun' root?" I asked absently. 
 
 "It 's a valuable root which grows in the 
 forest," he replied slowly. "Folks tell me they 
 send it away to China or some such land where 
 the people use it in medicine. I don't know. 
 When I get together a few pounds of it I send 
 it to a man who runs a drug store down in 
 Kingston, and he gets rid of it somehow or 
 other. I have found a powerful lot of 'ginshun' 
 root in my time, and Simon Badore could nose 
 it out too. You see, you got to have an instinct 
 to find 'ginshun' root, just like that foreign dog 
 has who finds the little onions." 
 
 I lifted my head with the neck muscles and 
 looked at John. ' ' Where did you ever hear of 
 a dog like that?" I asked him. 
 
* ' Why, Reuben told me one day when he was 
 a-fishing," John replied gravely. "He said 
 this here dog had such a fine sense of smell that 
 he could sniff out them little onions, although 
 they grew a foot or more under ground. ' ' 
 
 "Oh, I know," I cried. "Roby was telling 
 you about a French truffle hound. That 's the 
 truth. There is such a dog. You see, these 
 truffles grow deep in the ground in waste places 
 and they give no evidence of their presence. 
 But the French people love them as seasoning 
 with certain dishes, so for generations they 
 have hunted for them, and this particular dog 
 has developed the sense of pointing a truffle 
 just as a bird dog does quail. And do you 
 know, John, there is another animal that knows 
 how to find truffles even better than the French 
 peasant or the truffle hound." 
 
 "Well, now," John exclaimed, "you don't 
 tell me ! And what like of animal is it ? " 
 
 "It 's a beetle," I returned, proud of my 
 knowledge gained from one of J. H. Fabre's 
 stories of insect life— "a little old mother beetle 
 which, when the time comes to lay her eggs, trots 
 around until she finds a spot which she knows is 
 directly over a truffle some fifteen inches below, 
 and then she lays an egg on that spot. ' ' 
 
 "Well, well, I declare!" John muttered, com- 
 pelled to express his interest. 
 
 [113:1 
 
"Then she goes away," I went on, "abso- 
 lutely certain she made no mistake, for it would 
 be death to her child if that truffle proved not 
 to be there. In due time a little beetle is born, 
 and it, too, knows about that truffle, for it imme- 
 diately begins to dig and it never stops digging 
 until it bores its way down to the truffle, on 
 which it feeds until it is grown to maturity and 
 ready to come up and have a look at the world. " 
 
 "Well, well, I want to know!" John said 
 with interest. "It 's a wonderful world. It 
 surely is." 
 
 I replaced my head on the cap and smiled in- 
 ternally at the interest John showed in my story 
 about the truffle beetle, and I thought what a 
 little view he had of life. "What a delight it 
 would be to him to read or have read to him 
 such books as "Life and Love in the Insect 
 World," the "Life of a Spider," or that charm- 
 ing prose poem, "The Life of the Bee." 
 
 I had almost lost consciousness when I was 
 aroused by John's voice. "There 's things 
 happen which we don't understand," he was 
 saying in his gentle, liquid drawl; "and I said 
 them very words to Simon Badore as we stood 
 on the shore of Little Depot Lake and listened 
 to them snakes bark. ' ' 
 
 "What do you mean, bark? ' ' I asked, incredu- 
 lously. 
 
' ' I admit it. It sounds queer, ' ' John went on, 
 * ' but I 'U tell you about it, for this talking about 
 'ginshun' root and that there truffle hound 
 brought it to my mind. 
 
 "Some few years ago, when I did n't have to 
 fear the rheumatiz as I do now, Simon Badore 
 and I went into the Depot Lakes country hunt- 
 ing 'ginshun' root, for it was a good price and 
 skins were off. Simon was a fine fellow to 
 travel with. He was so quiet and he had such 
 a way of nosing out ' ginshun. ' One day we was 
 a-looking in the swamp lands near little Depot 
 Lake when we heard a beagle hound give 
 tongue. I cocked an ear and listened. So did 
 Simon. 
 
 " 'What 's that?' I said. 
 
 " 'Sounds to me like a hound giving tongue,' 
 said Simon. 
 
 " 'Like a beagle hound,' I says. 
 
 " 'You 're right,' he says. 'It 's a beagle, 
 sure. ' 
 
 ' ' ' But what on earth is a beagle hound doing 
 back here in this wilderness,' I says, 'this not 
 being the hunting season and not a human being 
 in sight, except you and me, for forty miles. ' 
 
 " 'Well, that gets me, too,' Simon says. 
 
 "We stood and listened, and of all the 
 tonguing we ever heard that was the saddest 
 and the lonesomest and the most anguishing. 
 
 [;ii5 3 
 
" 'That dog is suffering pain,' said Simon. 
 
 " 'He 's lost, sure enough,' I returned. 'Let 
 us shout.' 
 
 "So we shouted as loud as we could, and I 
 tell you Simon Badore could do some shouting 
 in those days. He had heen lost in the woods 
 himself and his voice was trained. 
 
 "But the dog did n't hear us. He kept right 
 on whooping that mournful whoop. 
 
 "Simon thought he must be over on the hill, 
 on the far side of the lake, and this seemed 
 likely to me, so we concluded to give up hunting 
 'ginshun' root for that afternoon and go look 
 for that beagle hound. 
 
 "We had to go round an inlet at the south 
 end of the lake, and it was some journey, but all 
 the while as we travelled we could hear that 
 dog and we felt it our duty to find him. I was 
 a better walker than Simon and was some dis- 
 tance ahead of him when I came out into the 
 open at the head of the inlet, and I heard that 
 hound as if he was almost under my feet. So 
 I climbed up on a log and looked, and when 
 Simon came up I motioned him with my left 
 hand to step softly, which he did, being an old 
 hunter. When he crawled up beside me I 
 pointed out into the water where the barking 
 came from, and what do you think we saw? 
 Well, I '11 tell you, and Simon Badore will swear 
 
to the truth of every word. We saw, half out of 
 water and half in, a snake lying on a half sunken 
 saw log, a snake as big around as your leg and 
 fully eighteen feet long, with his head a-waving 
 back and forth through the air and giving 
 tongue exactly like a beagle hound. 
 
 " 'Would you believe it?' Simon whispered 
 to me. 
 
 "And then we saw the head of another snake 
 come pushing up along another sunken log with 
 its mouth wide open and gurgling like it was 
 choking to death. It crawled up its log till we 
 could see it was fully as big and long as the 
 other snake, and lifting itself about four feet in 
 the air, it swayed and choked most horrible. 
 
 "Simon and I stood and looked, trying to 
 make out what was the matter with them snakes. 
 They never noticed us. One was suffering some- 
 thing terrible, there was no doubt about that, 
 and the mate which was doing the barking was 
 a-giving tongue in sympathy. We saw that 
 plain enough. 
 
 "Suddenly the suffering snake laid its head 
 flat on the log and give a rippling heave. It 
 shot a big catfish out of its mouth as much as 
 four feet before it struck water, and then we 
 knew what had happened. That snake had 
 swallowed one of them big horned pout as lives 
 down in Little Depot Lake, some of them weigh- 
 
ing nigh twenty pounds, and got the horns cross- 
 wise in its throat. ' ' 
 
 "Did the barking cease then?" I asked. I 
 was now leaning on an elbow looking intently 
 at John. 
 
 ' ' It did, ' ' he replied. ' ' Them snakes just slid 
 off into the water and disappeared." 
 
 For some time I never took my eyes from 
 John's face. He sat with his hands clasped on 
 each other in his lap, his eyes following the 
 flight of a kingfisher that was operating near us. 
 I had known John a great many years, and he 
 had never worked off one like that on me before. 
 
 Surely his mouth will break into a smile after 
 a bit, I thought, and there must come a twinkle 
 in his eye. 
 
 But, no; John followed the plunges of the 
 kingfisher and looked as disingenuous as a child. 
 
 "This is a very beautiful day, John," I ven- 
 tured. 
 
 "Yes," he drawled, with that rising accent 
 that I love. 
 
 "Everything about us is so peaceful, so pure, 
 as if this were the place in which Truth lived, " 
 I continued. 
 
 John made no reply. 
 
 "And yet, John," I went on quietly, "Peter 
 Sharbot did not tell you the truth about the fish- 
 ing in this lake. ' ' 
 
"Well, Peter is a great talker," John said, 
 after reflection. 
 
 "We surely would have had at least one bite 
 if all those salmon he told you about were in 
 White Lake," I said. 
 
 "It would seem so," John returned. 
 
 "I don't like people who tell big stories, do 
 you?" I inquired, innocently. 
 
 "Well, I never think about it much," John 
 said, as he rubbed Ms hands slowly together. 
 "Old Pete Charles would lie once and a while, 
 but Francis Sharbot was a truthful man and 
 Peter was born truthful. Pete Charles was only 
 a kind of relation. I notice people generally 
 teU you the truth. I 've always believed in say- 
 ing what was so and nothing else. I hold a 
 point of honor in it, being brought up not to teU 
 lies, and when I was a younger man I Ve fought 
 oftener for being called a liar than for anything 
 else. I would not stand it now, either. A man 
 likes to think well of himself." 
 
 I coughed nervously and relapsed into silence. 
 John meanwhile gathered up the luncheon uten- 
 sils and stowed them away in the canoe. 
 
 We tried for black bass in the afternoon, but 
 even they would not bite, so I sat on the bottom 
 of the canoe facing John as he paddled and 
 thought of those barking snakes. 
 
 "I did n't know that snakes ever grew so 
 
 1:1193 
 
large in Canada as those you saw at Little Depot 
 Lake, ' ' I said cautiously, just to feel my way. 
 
 "There 's some powerful big snakes at the 
 Depot Lakes, ' ' John returned. 
 
 "And they bark just like a beagle hound?" 
 I asked timidly. 
 
 ' ' That 's what I told you me and Simon heard 
 them do, ' ' John replied with conviction. ' ' They 
 give tongue just like a beagle hound. ' ' 
 
 I dropped the subject. 
 
 When we reached home I told the barking 
 snake story to Eoby and Larry with delight, 
 and I warned them not to jest with John with 
 reference to it. They were both certain that 
 John had relapsed into a poetic mood owing to 
 the weird beauty of the day and the lonesome- 
 ness of our place of luncheon. 
 
 "Barking snakes!" Larry cried, with mani- 
 fest incredulity. "Who ever heard of a yarn 
 to beat that!" 
 
 "But you must admit," Eoby remarked, 
 "that John is clever. I never believed he was 
 possessed of so well developed a vein of quiet 
 humor. ' ' 
 
 The next day Eoby went fishing with John 
 and drew the barking snake story from him in 
 a masterful way. John related it to him word 
 for word as he had done to me. 
 
 Eoby was as plainly dumfounded as I was. 
 
 ni203 
 
It so happened that the Badore brothers came 
 to the Island a few days later to repair the 
 break-water, which had suffered from the ice 
 that spring, and among them came Simon. 
 About one-thirty, John not yet having returned 
 from lunch, Eoby and Larry and I stood watch- 
 ing the Badores heave ponderous stones as if 
 they were ninepins, when an inspiration came 
 to me. 
 
 "Simon!" I called. 
 
 "Yes, sir," Simon replied, not dropping the 
 stone he was carrying, but resting it on his knee. 
 
 "Simon," I said, "John Antoine was telling 
 me the other day of an experience you and he 
 had some years ago at the Little Depot Lake 
 with two barking snakes. ' ' 
 
 "Yes, sir," Simon said, nodding his head and 
 stiU holding the stone. 
 
 "Well," I went on, somewhat embarrassed 
 by the calm assurance in Simon's face, "bark- 
 ing snakes are not an every-day occurrence. ' ' 
 
 "No, sir, they 're not," said Simon. 
 
 "What did they soimd like?" I inquired. 
 
 Simon gently placed the stone on the break- 
 water as if fearful it would smash, and slowly 
 filled his pipe. 
 
 "John Antoine and I was a-looking for 'gin- 
 shun' root back at Little Depot Lake," he be- 
 gan, deliberately. 
 
 cm 3 
 
"Yes, I know," I interrupted, "and you 
 heard some barking going on. ' ' 
 
 "Yes, sir," Simon continued earnestly, ap- 
 pealing with his eyes to his brothers, who had 
 now gathered about him. "We heard a bark- 
 ing just as if a beagle hound was a-giving 
 tongue, the saddest, most melancholy whoop I 
 ever heard, and I says to John Antoine, 'John,' 
 I says, 'there 's a lost dog over there on the hill 
 beyant the lake, and yet it ain't the season of 
 the year for hunting in these parts.' John al- 
 lowed it must be a lost dog and one suffering 
 pain." 
 
 "John told me all that," I said, impatiently. 
 "Tell us about the snakes." 
 
 "Well, sir," Simon coughed and continued 
 modestly, "John, being a powerful walker, got 
 ahead of me and reached the place of the bark- 
 ing first, it being a little cove at the south end 
 of the lake. When I came up, John was stand- 
 ing on a big log a-waving to me with his hand 
 to step quiet, which I did, and climbed up beside 
 him. There they was, two snakes on two half- 
 sunken saw logs, one well out of water and the 
 other with only its head out, and both were 
 wailing something horrible." 
 
 "Wailing?" I cried. "John said barking." 
 
 "One was barking all right and no mistake," 
 Simon replied with spirit. ' ' The other was just 
 
 [:i22 3 
 
a-yelping or a-coughing, it would be hard to say 
 which, seeing he had the horns of a bull-head 
 sunk ia his gullet. I tell you I never seen a 
 brute critter suffer worse than that snake suf- 
 fered till he spit out the bull-head— I never did, 
 boys— honest, I never did." 
 
 "It must be awful to get a bull-head stuck in 
 your throat," the youngest Badore remarked 
 with awe. 
 
 "I tell you, boys," Simon said, looking his 
 brothers gravely in their faces, "it was the 
 pitiablest sight I ever saw. ' ' 
 
 ' ' How big would you say those snakes were ? ' ' 
 Eoby asked. 
 
 Simon paused and thought intently for a mo- 
 ment. Then he turned to his brother William 
 Nelson. "William Nelson," he said, "am I ex- 
 pert at scaling a saw log with my eye, or 
 ain't I?" 
 
 "Simon," William Nelson replied, looking at 
 his older brother proudly, "you 're a human 
 machine, that 's what you are, and Jerome 
 Thomson will vouch for it to any man. ' ' 
 
 "Well, then," Simon went on, as if assured 
 on the delicate point of judgment of the human 
 eye, "I sized up them two snakes. The chap 
 that did the barking would have scaled a scant 
 twenty feet in length by ten inches at the mid- 
 dle. He was a wroncher. The feller with the 
 
 [;i233 
 
bull-head in his throat was shorter by possibly a 
 foot six inches and was eight inches across the 
 stomach. But he had contracted with suffer- 
 ing." 
 
 I turned and looked reproachfully at Eoby. 
 He had sunk into himself in self-abasement. As 
 for Larry, he chewed a straw and tried not to 
 think, for at this moment John rounded the 
 break-water in his dugout. 
 
 "I was a-telling 'em," Simon called to him, 
 "of the time you and me heard the barking 
 snakes at Little Depot Lake." 
 
 "Yes?" John returned with that tantalizing 
 rising drawl. 
 
 ni243 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 SOME GOOD THINGS TO EAT 
 
 ROBY tells a story as lie alone can teU it in 
 ' his Hquid Southern style, to illustrate the 
 reverence of the negro for certain names which 
 he considers sacred. 
 
 "Half a dozen niggers in south Georgia had 
 been hoeing corn all morning and the day was 
 mighty hot. Long come noon they seated them- 
 selves in the striped shade of a rail fence to eat 
 their dinner, which consisted simply of bread 
 on which had been poured a little West India 
 molasses. They consumed this food with set 
 faces, for life that morning had seemed power- 
 ful pesky and worthless to them. Finally, as 
 the others were lighting their corn-cob pipes, 
 one fat nigger wiped the molasses from his lips, 
 showed his gleaming teeth, and said with an 
 inspired smile, 'Speakin' of good things to eat, 
 give me a nice, fat ham bone, a-roastin' iu the 
 pan with plenty o' cloves stuck in the brown 
 hide of it and the juice a-drippin', drippin' 
 down.' 
 
 1:1253 
 
' ' This delectable vision inspired another nig- 
 ger, seated on one heel in the fence corner. 
 'Ham bone is sure good,' he said, with a com- 
 prehensive lick of his lips, 'but give me a nice, 
 juicy chicken a-cookin' in a pan, with the yaUer 
 fat of it a-blobbin' out and a-blobbin' out and 
 a-oozin' down the side as you stick a fork in 
 him.' 
 
 " 'Huh!' cried a little nigger on his knees in 
 the soft soil, 'you-all can have your ham bone 
 and your roastin' chicken, but give me a nice, 
 fat 'possum.' 
 
 "He had no sooner uttered the word ' 'pos- 
 sum,' than a tall, melancholy nigger reached 
 over and with a back-handed blow sent him 
 heels over head out into the corn-field. 
 
 "The little nigger rose quickly to his feet and 
 with tears of rage in his eyes sputtered as he 
 spit the earth from his lips, 'Say, nigger, what 
 for you hit me dat way?' 
 
 " 'Boy,' replied the melancholy nigger, in 
 deep, mournful tones, 'don't you nebber name 
 dat greasy word unless you got him wid yer !' " 
 
 I feel somewhat as that sad-eyed nigger must 
 have felt, in approaching this subject of good 
 things to eat at Sharbot Lake, for I am seated 
 at my desk in the Wall Street district, and I 
 feel greatly depressed. As I look over my left 
 shoulder I can see past the corner of Lord's 
 
■ SOME pike" 
 
Court Building, over and above the building of 
 the Farmers Loan and Trust Company, an 
 obloid of blue sky in which the sun is shining. 
 It is April. The air is warm and Kipling's red 
 gods have been calling to me all day long. I 
 went over to the Bankers Club for lunch and 
 yawned over the bill of fare. It took me five 
 minutes to make up my mind what to have. I 
 decided on shad roe and bacon, and for dessert, 
 fresh strawberries. Neither tasted good to me. 
 So I got to thinking of Sharbot Lake and good 
 things to eat, and decided to write this chapter. 
 
 One morning the Star Boarder and I went 
 fishing, he for salmon with Herb Smith, and I 
 with John Antoine for black bass. It was to 
 be a picnic day. Larry was to bring the Gentle 
 One and my wife with the trimmings of the 
 lunch up to Cheese Island in the Sharbotina 
 about one o'clock, where we were to join them, 
 and Herb Smith was to broil a few of the fish 
 we caught. It was a beautiful day, and every 
 piscatorial sign was favorable. John and I did 
 not get started until nearly ten o'clock, there 
 being the usual thousand and one things to do at 
 Aspinwall Island. 
 
 But John and I did not bother about this. We 
 would fish along the shore all the way to the 
 upper lake, and this would bring us over some 
 fine black bass territory. So we started. When 
 
 [1273 
 
we had circumnavigated Campbell's Island 
 twice I realized that I had not yet had a bite, 
 and we shifted to a shoal where one could al- 
 ways pick up half a dozen nice broilers. For 
 some reason or other the bass were not on or 
 about the shoal, so we moved onward toward the 
 upper lake, feeling confident we should get all 
 we wanted on the weed bed between Orford's 
 Point and the Doctor's Island. On the way I 
 discussed with John the vagaries of black bass 
 and their gipsy habit of wandering. 
 
 "My own opinion," John said, as he rowed 
 slowly, "is that black bass hold an election each 
 summer to see who shall be their governor-gen- 
 eral for the coming year, and that for a week 
 or so before this election they are mighty busy 
 moving about electioneering and influencing 
 votes. Consequently they pay no attention to 
 shiners dragged past their noses." 
 
 "Where do you think they hold the election?" 
 I inquired. 
 
 "I believe they gather in the deep water to 
 vote, perhaps at some big sunken rock," John 
 replied. "And do you know, I should n't be at 
 all surprised if this was election day. ' ' 
 
 "Well," I said, roused out of smug confidence 
 in my ability always to catch a mess of bass at 
 any time under any conditions, "if this is so, 
 what shall we do for lunch?" 
 
"Perhaps the other folks will catch a few 
 salmon," John returned. 
 
 ' ' Catching salmon enough for lunch is a weak 
 reed to lean on, ' ' I ventured dismally. 
 
 Jolm. rowed on in silence, keeping a watchful 
 eye on my line, hoping against hope that he 
 might possibly be wrong in his election day 
 theory. Presently we entered the upper lake 
 and reached the weed bed off Orford's Point, 
 but we had no better luck there, and I looked 
 at my watch nervously. We could see Herb 
 Smith and the Star Boarder trolling for salmon 
 in the deep water some distance west of us. 
 They seemed to be doing little, if any, business. 
 
 ' ' Come, John, ' ' I said impatiently, after a bit, 
 "let us try the old sunken log. There is nothing 
 doing here and we must have some fish for 
 lunch. Pick me out a nice, active minnow, and 
 we shall see if we can't rouse a little interest in 
 the black bass tribe." 
 
 "We tried the old sunken log that had never 
 failed us before. I dragged the bait in under 
 its black head, which was just above the water, 
 and round about it, but without the least result. 
 
 "It must be election day, sure," said John. 
 
 "Oh, bother your election day," I returned. 
 "We 're going to be plain skunked this morn- 
 ing, and that is a disgrace that never happened 
 to me before." 
 
 1:1293 
 
"Well, well, it 's a caution, it sure is," John 
 said slowly, looking about Mm for some sign of 
 a fish breaking water for a fly. "It 's a pity 
 Jane ain't here, for she never failed yet." 
 
 I smiled as I thought of Jane and her snitch- 
 ing proclivities. Jane was the wife of a friend 
 of mine. Her husband called her ' ' Dot, ' ' but I 
 always addressed her as Jane because she re- 
 minded me of a sister of mine of whom I was 
 very fond. A happy, whole-souled, singing crea- 
 ture, this Jane friend, old-fashioned, primitive 
 in her instincts, a good cook, a mother of sev- 
 eral children, a woman who believed that her 
 husband was the best man and the most talented 
 that the Lord ever made, one who looked with 
 scorn on ladies to whom fashion was a first and 
 home a second consideration. 
 
 Jane loved to fish, and especially to catch fish. 
 It interested her greatly if a bass ran away 
 with her line, but once she had checked him 
 there was no fooling in the way she handled 
 that fish. Her one idea was to get him in the 
 boat as quickly as possible, and she simply re- 
 belled at having to throw one back for being 
 under the legal size. And she was lucky. John 
 considers her the luckiest person he ever rowed, 
 for she has time and again fished over ground 
 that another boat had given up as no good and 
 made a fine catch. 
 
 1:1303 
 
P! 
 
 tattttM 
 
 iMiayMiiiMi 
 
 THE SHARBOTINA AND THE PETER PAX 
 
I called Jane a fish snitcher and tried often 
 to shame her into letting the bass play awhile 
 before landing them, but my ribald remarks 
 had no effect on her self-esteem. She averred 
 that she knew what she was doing. She set out 
 to get fish, did n't she? And she got 'em, did n't 
 she ? That ended the argument. 
 
 Vain as I was of my own ability as a black 
 bass fisherman, I longed for Jane when John 
 mentioned her name, for I really believed that 
 she had a charm peculiarly her own. 
 
 However, Jane was at home attending to her 
 family duties, and wishing was fruitless. It 
 was now twelve-forty-five, and we heard the 
 purr of the Sharbotina as she came through the 
 gap. The ladies waved to us as they passed, 
 while John and I hung our heads in disgrace. 
 
 We were skunked. That was all there was to 
 it. So we gave up and John rowed over to 
 Cheese Island, where the picnic was to be held. 
 
 When we told our tale of failure the ladies 
 were much disappointed, but the Gentle One, 
 not knowing the ways of salmon, assured us 
 that her husband would have plenty of fish when 
 he came in, and at that moment the other boat 
 drew near. 
 
 "How many fish did you catch?" the Gentle 
 One called. 
 
 The face of the Star Boarder was beaming, 
 
 [1313 
 
and as he reached for the fish box I repri- 
 manded myself for having thought so unchari- 
 tably of his abilities. 
 
 He drew out the box and then held up for our 
 inspection a baby salmon, weighing possibly 
 three pounds. 
 
 "How many more have you got?" his wife 
 shouted again. 
 
 ' ' That 's all, ' ' he replied, and he hailed me. 
 
 "How many bass did you catch?" 
 
 John shrunk into himself as I replied, ' ' Not a 
 darn one." 
 
 His face expressed dumfounded consterna- 
 tion. But when he had landed and had a drink 
 of ice- water, and his wife had powdered the end 
 of his nose, which was aflame, he cheered up 
 and cried in his usual hearty way, "Well, Herb, 
 broil the salmon for the women folk and we 
 shall make a lunch on hard-boiled eggs and 
 sandwiches." 
 
 I again lowered my head, not daring to look 
 my wife in the eyes ; for that morning, when she 
 had discussed what she should bring in the lunch 
 basket, I had told her above all things not to 
 bring hard-boiled eggs, that we should have 
 plenty of fish, that our friends could have hard- 
 boiled eggs at home and should not have hard- 
 boiled eggs inflicted upon them every time we 
 had a picnic. 
 
 ni32 3 
 
So when it was discovered that there were no 
 hard-boiled eggs in the basket, Larry suggested 
 sarcastically that he run over to the village and 
 get some canned tongue or sardines. 
 
 "Gro and stay there till the Toronto mail 
 comes in," I retorted. "We '11 make out some- 
 how. ' ' 
 
 There were bread-and-butter sandwiches in 
 the basket, a couple of thermos bottles of coffee, 
 half a dozen doughnuts, three or four blueberry 
 cakes, a package of sliced bacon, another of but- 
 ter, and a multitude of knives and forks, plates, 
 cups and saucers, salt-cellars, pepper-shakers 
 and napkins. 
 
 As the meager supply of food was spread 
 out on a table-cloth, we all simultaneously began 
 to get hungry. Herb Smith meanwhile was 
 broiling the little salmon on a fireplace near the 
 shore, and we sat about him, inhaling the fra- 
 grant odor of that salmon and the bacon that 
 had previously been fried, every moment get- 
 ting hungrier. 
 
 I tried to, while away the time by telling my 
 companions John's theory of the election among 
 the black bass people. They were greatly 
 amused until Herb Smith said solemnly to John 
 as he turned and rebuttered the salmon above 
 the fire, "John, I believe you have struck on the 
 exact truth of it. I allers wondered what hap- 
 
 1133-2 
 
pened to the black bass at this particular season 
 of the year, when they would n't bite under any 
 inducements, and now I know. They 're off to 
 the deep water voting for a governor-general. 
 That 's just exactly what they are doing. ' ' 
 
 "Oh, pshaw!" cried the Gentle One, incredu- 
 lously. ' ' How ridiculous ! ' ' 
 
 "There ain't nothing ridiculous about it," 
 Herb returned, keeping his eyes on the salmon. 
 "Fish is funny people. When you know their 
 ways as I know them, you won't wonder at any- 
 thing." 
 
 "For heaven's sake, is n't that fish cooked 
 yet?" the Star Boarder broke in. "I 'm fam- 
 ished." 
 
 "Pretty soon," Herb replied. "But do you 
 notice how he is a-shrinkin' up?" 
 
 I should say he was shrinking. He was now 
 not more than the size of a one-pounder. I 
 never saw a fish shrink so, and the bacon too, 
 that seemed plentiful, was now all shrivelled up 
 on the plate. 
 
 The ladies sat side by side on a log, each with 
 a napkin spread on her lap, and on this a plate 
 waiting for the salmon. When Herb was ready 
 to serve it, they protested that they would not 
 eat it alone. We must share in it, and the Star 
 Boarder and I consequently fell heir to a por- 
 tion each, but what a portion! Simply a bite 
 
and a swallow. That salmon was delicious and 
 I decided to try the skin, which looked nicely 
 browned. I had never eaten the skin of a salmon 
 before, so I bit into this gingerly. 
 
 "Say," I cried, "eat your piece of skin; it 's 
 as sweet as a nut. ' ' 
 
 The others hesitated, but hunger was gnaw- 
 ing at their vitals and they took the chance. 
 They found it all I had declared it to be, and 
 chewed the skin with relish. 
 
 Meanwhile John and Herb, seated on the 
 shore at our feet, were trying to eat the little 
 thin bread-and-butter sandwiches with noncha- 
 lance, just as if they were not the least bit hun- 
 gry. I noticed John drank lots of water. That 
 Indian has the manners of a chevalier. 
 
 Then the sandwiches disappeared, and the 
 doughnuts and blueberry cakes likewise faded 
 away, but we were still famished. I looked out 
 over the lake with resentment in my heart 
 against the black bass, and swore that in future 
 it should be war to the death between us. I felt 
 that I had been too lenient altogether in throw- 
 ing so many back in the past. 
 
 But Herb Smith was in a vicious mood. I 
 saw that as he lit a cheap cigar and brooded 
 over the empty pan. "This fresh air is won- 
 derful for creating an appetite," he said, re- 
 flectively. "Most of the people I row like fish, 
 
 1:1353 
 
for it 's new to them, the kind we get here. 
 Take, for instance, a plump two-pound bass, 
 skin him, remove the bones, spread him out on 
 a broiler like this one I brought along to-day, 
 pepper and salt him both sides, then as you hold 
 him over the fire spread butter over him slowly 
 so it will soak in. Then turn the other side up 
 and repeat with the butter. Cook him until he 
 is nicely brown and serve piping hot. Most 
 folks eat him with their fingers then. ' ' 
 
 The Star Boarder was licking his lips as Herb 
 talked, and the Gentle One still sat with her plate 
 in her lap, as if out of the heavens there might 
 come manna, while my wife sat immersed in sor- 
 row over the inhospitality we had exhibited to 
 our dear friends. John looked as one charmed 
 by the discourse. I attempted to smoke, but 
 there was no foundation to smoke on, and I 
 threw my cigar away. 
 
 "Personally I don't care much for fish," 
 Herb went on. "The ideal meal to me on the 
 shore of a lake on a bright, sunny day, such as 
 this, is broiled chicken. You see this fireplace? 
 Well, I 've broiled many a chicken here and I 
 thought maybe that is what you would want me 
 to cook for you to-day. ' ' 
 
 I writhed internally. 
 
 "You see," Herb continued, mercilessly, 
 "it 's a deep fireplace. The first thing I do 
 
 i:i363 
 
when I land is to start a rousing fire in it so 
 that all the stones get hot ; and when the fire has 
 died down, leaving only a bed of coals, I put 
 on the chickens and let 'em sizzle slowly, but- 
 tering and salting them much as I do the bass. 
 The butter soaks in and a firm film covers the 
 flesh of the chickens, holding in all the fatty 
 juices. They get a golden brown after a bit, 
 and when served have a smoky flavor that is 
 very appetizing. ' ' 
 
 "Don't you ever cook steak on the shore?" 
 the Star Boarder asked, with food lust in his 
 eyes. "I should say a big, juicy porterhouse 
 steak broiled in the way you describe out here 
 in the open would go fine. ' ' 
 
 John took another drink of water and the 
 Gentle One sighed deeply. 
 
 "No, I don't remember as I ever did cook a 
 steak on the shore," Herb replied thoughtfully. 
 ' ' It would be delicious, there ain 't a doubt of it ; 
 but we don't get real, good, heavy meat back 
 here. Deer steak, however, we have a-plenty of. 
 Take a steak from a fine young buck and cook 
 it in the woods on a bright, sharp October day 
 after you have been tramping over the hills 
 all morning, and say, that is some food— eh, 
 John?" 
 
 John jerked up his head quickly. ' ' Elegant ! ' ' 
 he replied, and moistened his lips. 
 
 113T2 
 
"But speaking of good things to eat, the best 
 food I ever had outdoors was barbecued lamb, 
 the way that Southern feller, Albert Howell, 
 who came up with Eoby one year, showed us 
 how to do, ' ' Herb exclaimed with enthusiasm. 
 
 "How was that?" the Star Boarder inquired 
 weakly. 
 
 "You remember it, John, don't you?" Herb 
 inquired. 
 
 "Sure, I do," John replied. "That Albert, 
 he was a rare one. ' ' 
 
 "You get a lamb— you must have it fat,— a 
 fat, young lamb,— and you dress it just as you 
 see fancy butchers dress the lambs they hang up 
 in their shops for exhibition, with the fat all 
 rolled inside the carcass and veiled over the 
 body like a mesh. The day before the barbecue 
 you dig a shallow hole about six feet long, with 
 a hard clay bottom, if possible, and early the 
 next morning you build a big hardwood fire over 
 half of this hole. While this wood is burning 
 down into coals, you skewer the lamb with a 
 long skewer in each leg so as two men can hold 
 it over the fire and turn it now and then. Then 
 you rig a couple of stones at each end so that the 
 skewers can rest on these stones, and the lamb 
 cooks very, very slowly over the ashes. Also 
 the day before you must make the barbecue 
 sauce and put in this sauce all the seasoning 
 
 1138-2 
 
and hot sauces that ever was invented by the 
 mind of man. You must have lots of this sauce, 
 for, all day long while the lamb is baking, you 
 must flick this sauce on it with a switch of twigs 
 or splints. Then you and your helper watch and 
 work hour after hour, taking a nip of Scotch 
 now and then when you get thirsty, until the 
 lamb has been over the fire a full eight hours. 
 Cut up then and serve hot, and if it don't melt in 
 your mouth, don't ever speak to me again." 
 
 "It will, I swear it will!" John cried in 
 ecstasy. 
 
 ' ' Say. what are you men talking about f ' ' the 
 Gentle One exclaimed. "I never heard such 
 conversation, and I 'm simply starving to death. 
 Elizabeth, let 's go home and have an early 
 supper. I can 't stand this any longer. ' ' 
 
 But John was not yet ready to awaken from 
 his dreams. ' ' Once, ' ' he began slowly, ' ' me and 
 Pete Charles was a-paddling up to the village 
 and we stopped off at Crusoe Island for a drink 
 of water. This was when the old folks was alive 
 and they was both sprightly. ' ' 
 
 "Whom do you mean by the old folks?" in- 
 quired the Gentle One. 
 
 ' ' Why, old Mr. and Mrs. Eobinson, of course, 
 as always lived on the island in the summer- 
 time. They used to come as soon as the ice went 
 out and stayed till the last flowers was dead. 
 
My! but that woman did love flowers just the 
 same as old Mrs. Winkle, and all she had to do 
 was to rub her hand over the ground to make 
 'em grow. Well, as I was going to tell you, me 
 and Pete Charles stopped off at Crusoe Island 
 one day for a drink of water and we found them 
 just getting up from the dinner table as we 
 stepped on the porch. Old Mrs. Robinson she 
 came to the door. 'Hello,' she says to us, 'you 
 two men are just the ones I 'm a-looking for. 
 I 've got a job for you to do.' 
 
 "Pete Charles he wagged his head back and 
 forth, and shook his shoulders, a-pivoting on his 
 hips, but never said a word. She knew, how- 
 ever, what Pete's waggling meant. It meant 
 that he was ready to do anything she asked, 
 from beating a rag carpet to helping bury the 
 dead. Pete had a failing toward shooting ducks 
 and partridges ag'in' the law just to bring 'em 
 in to these old people, for he was mighty fond of 
 them, knowing too that the old man always had 
 a nip of something good in a cupboard in the 
 boat house. 
 
 ' ' I stood and looked at her, not being much of 
 a talker myself, but just as ready as Pete to 
 help 'em out. But she just stood in the door- 
 way and laughed, while old Mr. Eobinson he 
 looked over her shoulder and grinned at us. 
 Then she says, 'Now you two men sit down on 
 
 [:i40] 
 
the stoop here, ' and when we did it she gave us 
 each a knife and fork and a plate. Pete and I 
 knew by this time that the job was not going to 
 be a very mean job. Well then, sir, she goes 
 into the kitchen and comes out with a big iron 
 pot and sets this pot down on the stoop between 
 me and Pete, and says to us, 'Lay to, boys; 
 there 's the job ahead of you.' 
 
 "We eyed the pot, from which a creamy vapor 
 was a-rising and a smell that searched the hid- 
 den corners in our stomachs, for me and Pete 
 was generally hungry them days, being always 
 in the open air. 
 
 "Well, Pete looked in the pot and so did I, 
 and we both give a good, long smell, and I teU 
 you now I never smelled such a delightful smell 
 as come from that pot. It was a pot-pie, but 
 such a pot-pie! In the very middle of it was 
 two partridges, one of 'em still whole, and 
 around these two partridges was the bodies of 
 half a dozen black squirrels floating among 
 islands of yellow pot-pie. The old folks had 
 hardly eaten any of it and so me and Pete 
 pitched in. We had to manoeuver carefully 
 'cause the flesh just fell away from them par- 
 tridges and them black squirrels when you 
 touched 'em. Pete 'u'd look at me every minute 
 or so and drop an eyelash, showing he was in 
 perfect bliss. Yes, I 've had good things to eat 
 
in my time, but never nothing to toucli tliat pot- 
 pie me and Pete Charles ate on the stoop with 
 old Mr. and Mrs. Eobinson a-lookin' on." 
 
 The Star Boarder was looking out across the 
 water with a stony stare in his eyes as John 
 finished his tale. Our suffering had passed the 
 crisis and we were dulled by despair. I cannot 
 speak of the mental process of my friends, but 
 as Herb and John talked, my mind in maddened 
 frenzy ran over all the years I had lived and 
 opened up cells of memories pregnant with 
 toothsomeness and olfactory delights. In par- 
 ticular I remembered a cherry pie, and moisten- 
 ing my lips I said, "We once had a cook who 
 could make cherry pie that would melt— ' ' 
 
 ' ' Let us have no more of this, ' ' my wife inter- 
 rupted with emphasis. ' ' We are torturing our- 
 selves like Flagellants, and here comes Larry 
 from the village. Let us go home, and I promise 
 that never again shall we be caught out at a 
 picnic without plenty of hard-boiled eggs." 
 
 ni42 3 
 
LOOKING WESTWARD 
 
CHAPTEK X 
 
 A SHARBOTIAN NIGHT 
 
 EACH summer I pitch a tent on the ridge 
 along the eastern shore of Aspinwall 
 Island and two of John Antoine's children bring 
 from the mainland bags of balsam boughs which 
 they spread a foot thick on the ground covered 
 by this tent. In the middle of the tent, half 
 buried in the fragrant evergreen boughs, is 
 placed a white enamelled bed and there I like 
 best to sleep during the waTm August nights. 
 
 If I lie on my right side, I can look out 
 through the front opening, on moonlight nights, 
 across the Island to where the new moon plays 
 in the water with Arcturus and the other west- 
 ern stars. If on my left side, I look through the 
 rear opening across the broad lower lake to the 
 wild hiUs that form its eastern boundary. So 
 night after night I roll and look, charmed with 
 the beauty of the stars and the shadows until 
 I am in such a condition of wakefulness that 
 sometimes, on exceptionally brilliant nights, I 
 arise, don a woollen bath-robe, and seating my- 
 
 i:i43n 
 
self on the shore, surrender my thoughts to the 
 influences of the night. 
 
 I confess that at such times I relapse into 
 paganism, for in some previous incarnation I 
 must surely have heen a worshipper of strange 
 deities, especially of the lesser gods of ancient 
 Greece who danced in the glades to the piping 
 of Pan. I cannot account otherwise for these 
 instinctive tendencies. They seem part and par- 
 cel of my appreciative love of Nature, and it 
 does not seem possible that in this short com- 
 mercial life I have lived my senses could have 
 acquired such a harmonious sympathy with 
 her moods, her sounds, her colorings and her 
 fragrances as they possess. Therefore, I delight 
 in the childish thought that in the old days I was 
 a shepherd in Arcady, a mortal playfellow of 
 Daphne, who delighted in woodland spots; of 
 Proserpine, daughter of the soil; of Aristaeus 
 the bee-keeper, and possibly of Aurora, goddess 
 of the dawn. 
 
 I read in books that Pan was dead and for 
 years I was tempted to believe that the poets 
 were right, that Apollo no longer guided his 
 fiery stallions up the morning sky, that Diana 
 had ceased to follow her hounds through the 
 groves, and that romance had given place to 
 stolid common sense. And then I came to 
 Aspinwall Island, and on such a night as this 
 
 1:1443 
 
I came to a realization that Pan and Ceres, 
 Bacchus and Ariadne, and all the glorious 
 lesser gods and goddesses will never die in the 
 imagination of such as love sylvan places and 
 delight in the harvest. 
 
 Perhaps these charming deities of Greece 
 were merely mental pictures with which the 
 minds of the artistic ancients decorated the 
 walls of the terrestrial Pantheon in which they 
 worshipped Nature, for in reality she was their 
 one God, and these others only intercessory im- 
 mortals through whom they sought her favor. 
 But this is only a fancy. They were indolent 
 worshippers, those pastoral people, and they 
 doubtless considered it too great a mental 
 effort to attempt a concrete conception of 
 Mother Nature and to raise altars to her as a 
 personified divinity. They chose rather to have 
 their god of the sea, their god of the winds, 
 their god of the sun, their god of increase, their 
 household gods and their sylvan gods, and evi- 
 dently they never consolidated them into one as 
 did the shepherds of Judea. Cloud-compelUng 
 Zeus and the other Olympian gods seem to have 
 been mere monstrous fancies with little human 
 interest, and it is known that these mighty ones 
 did not enter deeply into their lives. 
 
 Having so greatly admired the ancient 
 Greeks, I have wished, as I sat on the shore in 
 
 ni45] 
 
the white moonlight in a pagan mood, that they 
 had conceived a great, true, humanistic God, a 
 God representative of all the aspirations and 
 desires of mankind, for I have thought how 
 much it would mean to men and women now if 
 during the past centuries there had been estab- 
 lished in this world a truly sympathetic natural 
 religion in which no superstitious rites were 
 blended, a religion that would have been to man- 
 kind what mother love is to the individual, a 
 religion without awe or fear or prejudice. And, 
 finding no such God in the past, I have endeav- 
 ored to conceive a divinity of whom Nature was 
 the manifestation. 
 
 The attributes of such a deity would be based 
 on and moulded by well-established, funda- 
 mental laws, such as the law of attraction and 
 repulsion, the law of natural selection, the law 
 of adaptation to environment, the law of hered- 
 ity and the other laws of evolution. 
 
 There are certain manifestations of these 
 principles or laws that any of us can see in 
 operation and understand. We know that the 
 tree, which is one of the most remarkable of 
 living things, endeavors constantly to attain to 
 strength and beauty, and, granted the right con- 
 ditions, we realize that it will fulfil the primal 
 requirements of its existence. We see the soil 
 itself, crude and coarse as it is, constantly mov- 
 
ing to beautify itself by biding away dead mat- 
 ter under a layer of turf or moss ; we see that it 
 decks itself witb flowers and fragrant plants to 
 make itself attractive, and let us not say tbat 
 some Supreme Being by His arbitrary mandate 
 causes these mosses and flowers to grow, but 
 rather let us appreciate that the soil itself is a 
 living thing and has in itself these principles of 
 beauty, striving always to express them. 
 
 This striving for strength and beauty is char- 
 acteristic of all animals and of all human beings. 
 If any fail, and many do fail, it is because of 
 inherited weaknesses and because the banal in- 
 fluences of their euAdronment overpower them. 
 
 Therefore, he who comes to a conception of a 
 God of Nature, will worship strength and beauty 
 as divine attributes. Strength is health, and the 
 body of a living thing cannot attain to perfect 
 health without the strength to overcome and to 
 persist, for life is by its very nature a warfare 
 of antagonistic organisms. Existence in any 
 form is simply a chemical action in which 
 titanic forces are arrayed against each other. 
 The man, the brute, or the tree in which the ele- 
 ments of strength and beauty consolidate and 
 triumph, succeeds. All others are failures in 
 so far as their physicality is concerned. 
 
 Man has lifted himself above the doom of 
 the lower orders of existence by the develop- 
 
ment of a high intelligence that enables him to 
 make a success of life even without physical 
 strength and beauty, but this is a success giving 
 little personal gratification. He who radiates 
 light on his fellow-men consumes himself. The 
 man of sorrows in every age has poured out the 
 wine of his happiness to quench the thirst of 
 the unfortunate, a thirst which will never be 
 satisfied. 
 
 But while prophets come and go, Nature pro- 
 ceeds tirelessly, covering her dead with mosses 
 and flowers, striving for beauty, eternally con- 
 solidating her forces in the attainment of 
 strength. Is man wiser than she, the Mother 
 God? 
 
 Nature is a builder, not a destroyer. In the 
 building of what she has designed, much seem- 
 ingly is destroyed, but the attainment is con- 
 structive. She does many a little wrong to make 
 a great right. 
 
 And love is the trowel with which she builds 
 her temples. Love is her master workman as 
 well as her instrument. It is her creator and 
 her means of creation. Love is the local divin- 
 ity of strength and beauty. 
 
 It was meant that men and women should 
 adore Love, and in the classic ages they did 
 worship Love and they built temples to the god 
 in which were altars whereon were laid flowers 
 
 [:i483 
 
in sacrifice. But a sordid clannisli race arose in 
 the world preaching the religion of a Supreme 
 Being who made Love a menial of the marriage 
 rite, and this beautiful Love of the ancients be- 
 came a creature of the law, "Increase and mul- 
 tiply and replenish the earth." 
 
 Why should men increase and multiply and 
 replenish the earth? To provide shepherds to 
 watch sheep? To fill the ranks of the fighting 
 men? To furnish slaves for the masters? To 
 furnish females for these men? 
 
 I cannot believe that Love was ever intended 
 as the vassal of a God who bred men to build 
 Him hecatombs. Love is a creature of the sun- 
 shine and the summer night. Love is the fairy 
 spirit which blows the pollen of the rose to the 
 rose, that inspires the songs of the birds, that 
 stirs the male fish to ecstasy as he moves over 
 the spawning-bed, that fires the heart of the 
 young men and the maidens. He is what the 
 Greeks knew him to be, not the Caliban of the 
 Jews. 
 
 We know this to be true, at least all lovers 
 do. They are all friends of Pan and his entour- 
 age of njTuphs and fauns who danced engar- 
 landed in the Arcadian glades, for love to them 
 is poetry and rhythmic movement and song. 
 
 But Love is only one of Nature's satellites. 
 There is Imagination, another delightful pur- 
 
veyor of happiness. It is difficult to tell how 
 this creature of Nature operates, but it is pleas- 
 ant to think of Imagination as of a humming- 
 bird on poised wings visiting for a drop of 
 memory each cell of the brain, as the little bird 
 visits the flowers. 
 
 We have two humming-birds at Aspinwall Is- 
 land which have made their summer home with 
 us for years. We never tire of watching them 
 hover over the nasturtiums, probing deeply to 
 the heart of each flower for an atom of nectar. 
 There is no more charming expression of life 
 than one of these tiny creatures. They have 
 given me this idea, fantastic, it is true, but re- 
 vealed to me by that mysterious humming-bird 
 my imagination. 
 
 Suppose that you abandon your thoughts for 
 a moment to the rule of this metaphor, and seat 
 yourself beside me on the shore this wonderful 
 summer night in a mood of exaltation like that 
 of ^neas upon his settlement on the banks of 
 the Tiber, when "he invoked the God of the 
 place, and Earth as the first-born child of the 
 Gods, and the Nymphs, and the unknown Gods 
 of the rivers, night and the rising stars of 
 night. ' ' 
 
 You sit fascinated by the silent influences. 
 Suddenly Imagination comes, drives its bill 
 deep into the corona of a thought, and you no- 
 
tice that those white birch saplings over on the 
 eastern shore are really not trees at all but 
 dancing creatures. Surely they are not nymphs, 
 sweeping round and round in a hand-clasped 
 circle? Why, of course they are not. They are 
 merely white birch saplings, but you begin to 
 think of those sylvan deities of Ureece and pres- 
 ently you see the fair Lady of the moon, who 
 has now backed round the corner of the Island 
 and is looking at you ; you see this full-throated 
 siren press back her head and throw out her 
 heavy tresses for all the lovers keeping night 
 vigil to see. And you say, and you smile as you 
 say it, "What a wanton she is!" Just so she 
 smiled and let loose her hair for all men to see 
 before Pericles conceived the Parthenon ; and as 
 you laugh in her face this night, just so laughed 
 Horace seated on the lawn of his Sabine farm 
 two thousand years ago, for you remember that 
 Horace adored and thought he saw the old gods, 
 and the following lines come to you, the hum- 
 ming-bird piercing a cell on the instant : 
 
 "Bacchus I saw remotest rocks among, 
 
 (Believe it, unborn ages), ivy-crowned. 
 Teaching to listening nymphs mysterious 
 song; 
 Goat-footed fauns with pointed ears stood 
 round. ' ' 
 
 1:1513 
 
And, thinking of Horace, you will think also 
 of Sappho and whisper to yourself his charm- 
 ing lines in praise of her, which are unforget- 
 table : 
 
 "And love still breathes where Sappho sings, 
 And still the soul of rapture clings 
 To the wild throbbings of the ^olian 
 strings." 
 
 That humming-bird imagination will still tire- 
 lessly probe brain cell after brain cell, and as 
 you sit in an ecstasy of thought, all the poetic 
 past will live again and you will dream with 
 your eyes open as does a god. 
 
 There is white magic in the moon. I see it 
 has affected a crane which stands on a flat 
 rock out in the water before me ; for instead of 
 attending to his fishing he poses with uplifted 
 head in statuary adoration of the Queen of 
 Heaven. 
 
 Let us raise our eyes also until in the apex 
 of the firmament we see Vega and her obloid 
 of satellites. Just across the way from her is 
 the Northern Crown, and down the southern 
 sky a way is the Scorpion. And as we lift our 
 heads let us lift our thoughts up among the 
 stars, and beyond the stars we see to the invis- 
 ible stars, and search out the God of our good, 
 
practical Mother Nature, the God of all the 
 suns and all created things. We shall not behold 
 Him, but He is there. He is where the farthest 
 flung beam of the most distant sun impinges 
 upon its horizon, and He is here in our souls 
 saying to us, "Tou are fantastic creatures, but 
 you adore me and I love you. ' ' 
 
 Let us to bed. But stop a moment ! See the 
 vapor settling down as if to rest in Babcock's 
 Bay, pressed down by the moon rays. See the 
 little stars looking at their reflection in the mir- 
 ror lake. Listen to the crooning of the summer 
 breeze as it moves through the pine trees. Li- 
 hale the thousand and one fragrances. 
 
 This is only one night of the midsummer 
 nights at Aspinwall Island, but throughout 
 most of them we are sound asleep. 
 
 cissn 
 
CHAPTEB XI 
 
 THE CHILDEEN OF THE LAKE 
 
 THE wilderness is never satiated with the 
 sensation of liviag. The lover of Nature is 
 impressed with the strenuous youth of the for- 
 ests, the fields and the waters. Nature abhors 
 age when it becomes unsightly, decayed, use- 
 less, concealing it cunningly with mosses and 
 vines or in death burying it quickly. Her 
 scavengers and undertakers are very efficient. 
 
 She glories in pretending that she is only a 
 year old, singiag and dancing on the hills each 
 spring, fluttering her new robes in the wind, 
 determined to make the other gods believe that 
 her blushes, her dimples, her laughter, her songs 
 and her vivacity are those of youth. 
 
 Life here is the great adventure, not death. 
 There is no lure in the mystery that hides 
 beyond the portals of the latter, appealing 
 sensuously to the wilderness and its creatures, 
 human, animal and inanimate. 
 
 When one has touched all sides of life, ex- 
 hausted its possibilities, rang it as Quasimodo 
 
rang his bells till every vibration has been 
 sounded, when the Present treads in the foot- 
 steps of the Past, and there is no longer any 
 new thing under the sun, then death remains the 
 only sensation unexperienced, and, realizing 
 how commonplace life has been, some call death 
 the great adventure. 
 
 But I shall never so misuse this term. There 
 is but one great adventure in life, and that is 
 the begitming of an independent existence. The 
 coddled chUd and the caged animal never expe- 
 rience it. It is so delightful, so pathetic, so 
 altogether wonderful, this great adventure of 
 stepping out of the egg, out of the cocoon, out 
 of the nest, out of the home, and going it alone. 
 It fascinates the observer. 
 
 There was a song sparrow last summer who 
 made her nest and hatched her young near the 
 large flower bed back of the boat house. She 
 had only one baby and I watched every develop- 
 ment in the training of that little bird. I saw 
 it the first day it walked abroad. It did not go 
 more than two feet from home, contenting itself 
 simply with sitting still, breathing the fresh air 
 and letting its mother feed it. The next day it 
 travelled fully twenty feet from home and saw 
 the lake through the bushes, and the following 
 day it fell over an embankment and I saw it, 
 trembling with excitement, seated among the 
 
 1:1553 
 
stones on the shore of the lake. Its mother sat 
 on a boulder and scolded it for its temerity, but 
 it paid no attention to her— it was so fine there 
 in the warm sunshine. She told it to come back 
 home at once, but it never moved. Then she went 
 away and returned after a bit with a mouthful 
 of moths. It was hungry and those moths 
 smelled invitingly, but the mother permitted it 
 to have only a smell. She jumped on a little 
 rock and it scrambled after her. Then she let 
 it have another smell. From this rock she 
 hopped to a boulder. The birdling looked up at 
 her and hesitated. This was a mighty hop for 
 so little a bird, but it tried it and landed suc- 
 cessfully, receiving as a reward simply another 
 smell. Then I saw what the old bird had in 
 mind. She was tempting the baby back home. 
 It took fully half an hour for the little song 
 sparrow to reach the smooth grass near the 
 flower bed, and, once there, the mother fed it the 
 moths. 
 
 Then there were the swallows which made 
 their first flight out through the boat house 
 doors, over the water. That also was truly a 
 great adventure. 
 
 Larry and Jane and my wife had been watch- 
 ing these swallows for some time. The nest 
 was on the beam under the roof of the launch 
 house and there was no way that the little swal- 
 
lows could strike out into the world unless they 
 flew over the water out to the break-water. 
 They knew this well enough, for we saw them 
 sizing up the situation day after day. They 
 grew so large that they fairly crowded one an- 
 other out of the |iest, there being four of them, 
 but they dreaded to make the attempt. 
 
 Finally we found three of them seated on a 
 rock at the rear of the boat house, preening their 
 feathers, fuUy assured of themselves. But one 
 was missing and we were afraid for some time 
 that it had been drowned, as it was no longer 
 in the nest. That day, however, when we were 
 about to enter the Sharbotina to go for the mail, 
 we discovered the missing swallow in the bot- 
 tom of the launch, into which it had tumbled 
 luckily. It was a very much frightened little 
 bird. Its first venture from the nest had been 
 a failure. We placed it on the break-water, 
 where it was still sitting when we returned. The 
 following morning we witnessed an interesting 
 scene. The little swallow flew several times 
 from the break-water to the shore, while its 
 mother sat on the roof of the boat house and 
 watched. Presently, feeling vain of its powers 
 of flight, it flew directly out over the lake, and 
 with a scream of warning the mother flew 
 swiftly after it. She took a position directly 
 beneath it, turning as it turned. Suddenly the 
 
young swallow dipped as if it had lost control 
 of its wings or its strength had failed, but the 
 mother bird was beneath it and they flew to the 
 shore, the daring adventurer resting on its par- 
 ent's back. 
 
 Such scenes are a daily occurrence in the bird 
 world. The dangers of childhood and youth are 
 so many that no wonder the parent birds look 
 old and worn out by the time their young are 
 able to look after themselves. 
 
 It is even more interesting to observe the de- 
 velopment of children in such a lonely place as 
 this. As a rule, they are exceedingly wise in 
 taking care of themselves. They take few 
 chances, and while playing about the water con- 
 tiauously, are seldom reckless. They have a 
 wholesome respect for the elements and are gen- 
 erally safe in the kitchen when a storm breaks. 
 
 They are notoriously clannish and home-lov- 
 ing, these wilderness children, no matter how 
 humble their home may be or how frugal their 
 fare. They wander about in little groups all 
 day seeking adventure, barefooted, clad in the 
 simplest garments, and always most attractive 
 when least dressed up. 
 
 One morning the Star Boarder went with 
 Larry in the Peter Pan for the milk to a farm 
 house at the lower end of the lake, where its 
 waters flow in a narrow stream beneath a crude 
 
log bridge into Elbow Lake. As lie was seated 
 in the boat waiting for Larry and hidden by the 
 bushes on the shore, he heard the voice of a 
 child singing, "I 'ma happy girl, I 'm a happy 
 girl," and looking over his shoulder he saw a 
 mite of a barefooted child going across the log 
 bridge, swinging a little tin pail in one hand and 
 holding her face up to the bright morning sun 
 as she poured out her happiness to the day in 
 the improvisation, "I 'ma happy girl, I 'm a 
 happy girl." He watched her as she disap- 
 peared into the forest beyond the pasture field, 
 still singing her morning song, and was so im- 
 pressed with the fact that he had actually seen 
 Pippa pass and heard her sing that on his return 
 to the Island he described the scene to us with 
 the greatest enthusiasm. Nothing on earth that 
 he had ever seen or heard had been more charm- 
 ing, more picturesque than that quaint little 
 rustic child, singing of her happiness. 
 
 These little children on the rocky farms about 
 the lake have highly developed the ability to 
 entertain themselves. Luckily for their happi- 
 ness, there is generally a brood of them. These 
 country people are not afraid of over-populat- 
 ing the earth. The little people, bright-eyed 
 and wondering, peer like rabbits from the win- 
 dows of the log cabins when I go visiting. A 
 stranger can get nothing from them. They are 
 
too shy to talk, but when they know you well 
 and have been bound to you by various small 
 presents and judicious offerings of candy, they 
 will let you into their mysteries and tell you 
 many quaint things ; and if they happen to fancy 
 you and even come to love you, they are your 
 slaves. It is exactly the same with their par- 
 ents. They are hard to get acquainted with at 
 first ; they are never awed by your superior po- 
 sition in the world; their friendship cannot be 
 purchased with bribes or gifts ; they cannot be 
 ordered to do anything, or, in other words, 
 driven. There is only one way to their hearts 
 and respect, and that is through genuine, long- 
 continued kindness. They seem to have an in- 
 stinctive power of differentiating between real 
 kindness and sympathy and the shoddy substi- 
 tute. It takes years to win their confidence, but 
 once you win it they are yours to command ever 
 afterward. 
 
 There is a man at the village who has been in 
 the past a large employer of labor, and the say- 
 ing is common in the community that he can get 
 more work out of the natives than any other 
 living being. He demands from them long 
 hours of service and vigorous toil when they are 
 in his employ, but they swear by him simply 
 because at some time in their lives they have 
 been in great trouble, or the flour bin has been 
 
scraped to the boards and there was no longer 
 pork in the barrel. At such times this man has 
 gone to them, over the ice or through the snow, 
 and given them aid, brought them the doctor or 
 mourned with them in their sorrows. 
 
 The human heart is peculiarly receptive to 
 kindness, and in all ages men have been subdued 
 by kindness and led along the path of civiliza- 
 tion by those who knew unconsciously the way 
 to their confidence. 
 
 The thought that is uppermost in my mind as 
 I talk to or simply contemplate the wilderness 
 children is this: Some day they will have to 
 strike out in the world and earn their living; 
 and knowing the heart-burnings, the disap- 
 pointments and the awesome difficulties of this 
 undertaking from personal experience, my 
 heart swells with sympathy for these girls and 
 boys now so thoughtless and care-free. 
 
 There is no future for them here. This is 
 merely the paternal nest; but somewhere to- 
 ward the West or the South lies the big world 
 where fortunes are made, where fame lives, 
 where there is luxury to be secured,— in fact, a 
 place where young men and women go to take 
 passage in the ship of their destiny. 
 
 I have seen several of them start out, but the 
 home-leaving of a little Indian girl last summer 
 impressed me most. We had known her since 
 
she was very small, a dainty, black-eyed crea- 
 ture as timid as a chipmunk. She was one of a 
 large family of children, who played and slept 
 cuddled together like kittens, adoring one an- 
 other. When she was twelve she used to come 
 to the Island two or three times a week to pick 
 the nasturtiums, and perhaps there never was a 
 prettier sight than this tiny creature, with a red 
 band about her dark hair, daintily picking the 
 flowers about the big rock. She looked more 
 like a Japanese than an Indian, and this became 
 more pronounced as she grew older. At sixteen 
 she was a beauty, and like all genuinely beauti- 
 ful creatures she had the instinctive intelligence 
 to clothe herself in good taste. 
 
 But now the time came for her to go out in 
 the world and seek her fortune. Babies were 
 still coming along at home and the nest had be- 
 come too small for her. Her brother, her elder 
 by a year, was already at work for a farmer 
 some twelve miles away, so great a distance that 
 he did not get home more than once a year. 
 
 She could read and write fairly well and do 
 odds and ends of things when directed, but her 
 accomplishments in handicrafts were so limited 
 that necessarily she must start well down the 
 ladder in her climb to a place in human society. 
 And nobody could do this for her but herself. 
 
 Now, this little Indian girl with the face of a 
 
 ni623 
 
Japanese princess was too dainty for the posi- 
 tion of a kitchen maid, but what else was there 
 for her to do ? So a place was found for her and 
 she fared forth out over the water, just as the 
 adventurous swallow had done, with all her be- 
 longings in a hand-bag, and I am told that the 
 first night in her new home she cried bitterly. 
 
 I really hope that God keeps His eyes on these 
 little maidens who go out into the world, and 
 brings comfort to them in their times of home- 
 sickness, for really their fate is pitiable and 
 merits His loving compassion. There should be 
 a better chance for them than the kitchen, for 
 what can they graduate to from there ? 
 
 It is in my heart to believe, for the wish is 
 father to the belief, that the day will come when 
 all the children of the poor will be recognized as 
 wards of the State, and as such be given without 
 charge a technical education, so that they can 
 start life with a business training behind them, 
 and not be forced to crawl to a place in the 
 world as they now do on their hands and knees. 
 
 Some few of these struggling ones do climb 
 out from the cellar of life, and climbing having 
 become a habit with them, keep on ascending 
 until they sit in the seats of the mighty, becom- 
 ing of that rare brotherhood whose master 
 workman was Abraham Lincoln, but the way is 
 hard and a mighty stout heart is required. 
 
It won't do any harm, my good friends who 
 read this, to think hard along these lines of giv- 
 ing the children of the poor a better chance. 
 Think of the little Indian girl in her tiny bed- 
 room above the kitchen, longing for the joys of 
 life, and cultivate compassion for such as she. 
 
 For the loveliest being in the world is a little 
 child, and the more helpless it is the more it 
 appeals to us. Nature cares nothing about us 
 older people. She was done with us years ago 
 when we cut our chair strings and learned to 
 look out for ourselves. We are of the autumn 
 of the year, and if she regards us at all it is 
 with a query in her eyes. ' ' I am burying my old 
 leaves and vines and flowers and grasses," she 
 says, ' ' hiding aU under the snow ; is it not about 
 time for you also ? ' ' 
 
 She loves only the young, she paints roses on 
 their cheeks and touches their Ups with car- 
 mine. She fondles them and croons over them, 
 mothering them, mystifying them with her se- 
 crets, alluring them to a fullness of beauty so 
 that she may rejoice in her handiwork. Blessed 
 in her sight is the strong, young tree, the rose 
 in bud, the colt in the pasture, the boy spinning 
 his top, and the peasant Pippa singing as she 
 passes over the old log bridge, "I 'ma happy 
 girl, I 'm a happy girl." 
 
 [1643 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 WINTEE 
 
 JACK FEOST closes the story of Aspinwall 
 Island. He comes creeping down from 
 Hudson Bay, hiding in the marshes by day, and 
 each night stealing a little bit farther south- 
 ward, breathing upon the foliage as he passes 
 a sleep-inducing anesthetic. He is merely a 
 sprite of Mother Nature, this dispenser of win- 
 ter magic. She is worn out and would sleep, 
 but before she retires for her annual rest she 
 casts aside her catholicity of taste and demands 
 from Jack and her other coloraturists the bi- 
 zarre in a most pronounced degree. 
 
 ' ' Set the world on fire for me with the flame 
 of your most brilliant hues," she cries, and the 
 hills flash in an orgy of crimsons and purples 
 and pinks. 
 
 Then the colors fade, the leaves fall, the 
 grasses crinkle and bend low. The birds are 
 already gone, all but the ducks and geese, that 
 take their time feeding on the delicious wild rice 
 in the lakes along their way. But soon the last 
 
of them disappear also, and old Father "Winter 
 himself comes puffing and blowing over the hills, 
 scattering snow before him. The lake freezes, 
 freezes, freezes, until sometimes the ice is three 
 feet in thickness. Where are the black bass 
 now? That is what John Antoine and I would 
 very much like to know. They must be down in 
 the deep water, moving silently about in the 
 gloom. 
 
 The snow piles up on the Island in immense 
 banks, half burying the cottage, and there is no 
 evidence of life in the vicinity except the blue 
 streak of smoke ascending from the chimney of 
 John's cabin on the mainland. 
 
 It becomes so cold that sometimes it is forty 
 degrees below zero. The earth seems as dead 
 as a boulder. The air cracks and snaps as if in 
 pain. "Br-r-r-r!" blusters old man Winter, 
 "I 'ma devil of a fellow!" 
 
 But none of us are frightened by this un- 
 friendly season. We know, just as the little 
 children of Sharbot Lake know, that Nature is 
 only asleep, that along about March she will 
 yawn and stretch, causing the ice on Sharbot 
 Lake to crack and heave ; that early in April she 
 will sit up with a satisfied sigh and call the 
 winds about her, telling each to go its ways 
 spreading the news to the birds to come back, 
 because Mother is up and about. Then the Sun 
 
 1:166: 
 
will kiss the Earth on the lips and a new honey- 
 moon will begin. 
 
 So the wheel goes round, but we grow old— we 
 who have loved the sunshine and the humid soil 
 so passionately. Yet while the pitcher at the 
 well is still unbroken we may continue to drink 
 the elixir of life, that wonderful compound 
 made up of the laughter of children, the singing 
 of birds, the murmuring of young trees, the fra- 
 grance of flowers, the sparkle of pure water, 
 and the joy of fresh air. And as we draw near 
 to the soil perhaps the secret of reincarnation 
 may be revealed to us. 
 
 As for myself, I know that some day I must 
 bid good-by to Sharbot Lake and all its beloved 
 associations ; and when that time comes I hope 
 that my soul will slumber lightly, and that I 
 shall hear always through the eternities the 
 swish of water, the rustle of leaves, the twitter 
 of birds, the melodious hum of insects, and that 
 my senses will play about me like fairies, de- 
 lighting me with memories of Aspinwall Island. 
 
 [167]