buggy and buckboard that had never known water
since the day of their birth. And the two muskrat
skins nailed to the outside planking--spoils of the
mill-dam, a mile below.

Yes; he could paint here!

With a thrill of delight surging through him he
rolled up his sleeves, tilted the bucket, filled the
basin with ice-cold water which Hank had drawn for
him, a courtesy only shown a stranger guest, and
plunging in his hands and face, dashed the water over
his head. Samanthy, meanwhile, in sunbonnet and
straight-up-and-down calico dress, had come out with
the towel--half a salt-sack, washed and rewashed to
phenomenal softness (an ideal towel is a salt-sack to
those who know). Then came the rubbing until his
flesh was aglow, and the parting of the wet hair with
the help of Hank's glass, and with a toss of a stray
lock back from his forehead Oliver went in to breakfast.

It fills me with envy when I think of that first toilet
of Oliver's! I too have had just such morning dips
--one in Como, with the great cypresses standing
black against the glow of an Italian dawn; another
in the Lido at sunrise, my gondolier circling about me
as I swam; still a third in Stamboul, with the long
slants of light piercing the gloom of the stone dome
above me--but oh, the smell of the pines and the
great sweep of openness, with the mountains looking