"Isn't it perfectly delightful," I cried. "I could never weary of
watching all these things, and what is that big duck, or is it a goose,
traveling all alone and flying straight as an arrow?"

"It is just a big loon. The Great Northern Diver, you know."

"I don't think I ever saw them flying. I shall always recognize one
again. They are regular double-enders, pointed at both ends. Is it the
same sort of loon that we see on the Maine and Adirondack lakes?"

"The very same," he replied. "I dare say you are well acquainted with its
voice."

"Indeed I am; it used to give me goose-flesh when I first heard it, ever
so long ago. It's a dreadfully shivery sound."

The man smiled, as if he thought this a pretty fair description.

"It is rather spooky," he admitted, "but I love it as a typical sound of
the wilderness. It is just redolent with memories of the scented smoke of
camp-fires, of game-tracked swamps and big forests mirrored in deep, calm
waters all aglow with the lights of the setting sun."

This interested me. It is evident that this doctor is not simply a fairly
well educated dispenser of pills and a wielder of horrid instruments.
There is some tincture of sentiment in his make-up.

"How do you enjoy the practice of your profession in Sweetapple Cove?" I
suddenly asked him, rather irrelevantly.