and boulder. Where it deepens, his purpose deepens; where it is
shallow, he is indifferent. He knows how to interpret its every glance
and dimple; its beauty haunts him for days.

I am sure I run no risk of overpraising the charm and attractiveness of
a well-fed trout stream, every drop of water in it as bright and pure
as if the nymphs had brought it all the way from its source in crystal
goblets, and as cool as if it had been hatched beneath a glacier. When
the heated and soiled and jaded refugee from the city first sees one,
he feels as if he would like to turn it into his bosom and let it flow
through him a few hours, it suggests such healing freshness and
newness. How his roily thoughts would run clear; how the sediment would
go downstream! Could he ever have an impure or an unwholesome wish
afterward? The next best thing he can do is to tramp along its banks
and surrender himself to its influence. If he reads it intently enough,
he will, in a measure, be taking it into his mind and heart, and
experiencing its salutary ministrations.

Trout streams coursed through every valley my boyhood knew. I crossed
them, and was often lured and detained by them, on my way to and from
school. We bathed in them during the long summer noons, and felt for
the trout under their banks. A holiday was a holiday indeed that
brought permission to go fishing over on Rose's Brook, or up
Hardscrabble, or in Meeker's Hollow; all-day trips, from morning till
night, through meadows and pastures and beechen woods, wherever the
shy, limpid stream led. What an appetite it developed! a hunger that
was fierce and aboriginal, and that the wild strawberries we plucked as
we crossed the hill teased rather than allayed. When but a few hours
could be had, gained perhaps by doing some piece of work about the farm
or garden in half the allotted time, the little creek that headed in