Lucette rowed me over; and not being much in use except on Sunday, is
generally half full of water. Lucette insists on doing the bailing. She
has very often performed this service, and I have always considered it
as included in the curious scrawl of a bill which madame gravely
presents at the end of each of my days here, beginning in small printed
type with "François Laguerre, Restaurant Français," and ending with
"Coffee 10 cents."

But this time I resist, remarking that she will hurt her hands and soil
her shoes, and that it is all right as it is.

To this François the younger, who is leaning over the fence, agrees,
telling Lucette to wait until he gets a pail.

Lucette catches his eye, colors a little, and says she will fetch it.

There is a break in the palings through which they both disappear, but I
am half-way out on the stream, with my traps and umbrella on the seat in
front and my coat and waistcoat tucked under the bow, before they
return.

For half a mile down-stream there is barely a current. Then comes a
break of a dozen yards just below the perched-up bridge, and the stream
divides, one part rushing like a mill-race, and the other spreading
itself softly around the roots of leaning willows, oozing through beds
of water-plants, and creeping under masses of wild grapes and
underbrush. Below this is a broad pasture fringed with another and
larger growth of willows. Here the weeds are breast-high, and in early
autumn they burst into purple asters, and white immortelles, and
goldenrod, and flaming sumac.