the kitchen garden, and the tubs are set upon a few planks close to the
water, and the farmer's daughters, with bare arms and gowns tucked up,
are wringing out the clothes. Do you remember what happened to Ralph
Peden in The Lilac Sunbonnet when he came on a scene like this? He
tumbled at once into love with Winsome Charteris,--and far over his
head.

And what a pleasant thing it is to see a little country lad riding one
of the plough-horses to water, thumping his naked heels against the ribs
of his stolid steed, and pulling hard on the halter as if it were the
bridle of Bucephalus! Or perhaps it is a riotous company of boys that
have come down to the old swimming-hole, and are now splashing and
gambolling through the water like a drove of white seals very much
sun-burned. You had hoped to catch a goodly trout in that hole, but what
of that? The sight of a harmless hour of mirth is better than a fish,
any day.

Possibly you will overtake another fisherman on the stream. It may be
one of those fabulous countrymen, with long cedar poles and bed-cord
lines, who are commonly reported to catch such enormous strings of fish,
but who rarely, so far as my observation goes, do anything more than
fill their pockets with fingerlings. The trained angler, who uses the
finest tackle, and drops his fly on the water as accurately as Henry
James places a word in a story, is the man who takes the most and the
largest fish in the long run. Perhaps the fisherman ahead of you is such
an one,--a man whom you have known in town as a lawyer or a doctor,
a merchant or a preacher, going about his business in the hideous
respectability of a high silk hat and a long black coat. How good it
is to see him now in the freedom of a flannel shirt and a broad-brimmed
gray felt with flies stuck around the band.