cut in the side of the barn, my father who made the air resound
with threats of what he would do if I did not at once return to my
education mill. Here I was often joined by a congenial spirit, and
we played cards which were regarded as the emissaries of Satan by my
religious parents; then we would sally forth with masked faces and
wooden guns, and inspired by dime novels, overthrow the walls of
children's playhouses, throw rocks against the schoolhouse, bully the
small boys almost into fits, hook the neighbors' eggs, corn, melons
and apples, which we devoured at leisure in a hidden hut in the woods.

When the spirit moved, we would "swipe" a neighbor's skiff and go
floating and paddling beneath the overarching trees of Mill River,
lazily watching the muskrats sliding down the banks and sporting
in the water or building their huts of mud, sticks and leaves; the
fish-hawk, plunging beneath the surface and emerging with a struggling
victim in his talons which he bore away to a tree-top to tear and eat;
then a timid wood duck casting suspicious glances as it glided across
a cove, secreting her little ones in the swamp; then a crane standing
on one long leg motionless as a statue, watching with half-closed eyes
for a mud-eel for its dinner.

Then we would imitate those animal murderers, by catching some
fish which we broiled to satisfy our carnivorous appetites. It was
delightful to float in that tiny boat, gazing through the green canopy
of leaves at the great white clouds sailing over like ships upon
the sea, listening to the ecstatic trilling of the orioles, and the
flute-like melodies of the mockingbird of the north.

We would watch the delicate traceries of the water gardens through
which the mild-eyed stickle-backs sailed serenely, having implicit