a mouthful did I have to eat. I had fair success during the day, but was
bothered by the quantities of ice running, and a high wind. About four
o'clock in the afternoon I concluded to return home, for I was tired and
hungry. I was then out in the river off Plum Point. I saw an opening
leading south, and paddled into it, but had not gone far before the wind
drove the ice in upon me, and blocked the passage. There I was, helpless,
and it began to blow a gale. The wind held the ice immovable on the west
shore, even though the tide was running out. For a time I thought the
boat would be crushed by the grinding cakes in spite of all I could do.
If it had, I'd 'a been drowned at once, but I worked like a Trojan,
shouting, meanwhile, loud enough to raise the dead. No one seemed to hear
or notice me. At last I made my way to a cake that was heavy enough to
bear my weight, and on this I pulled up the boat, and lay down exhausted.
It was now almost night, and I was too tired to shout any more. There on
that mass of ice I stayed till two o'clock the next morning. I thought
I'd freeze to death, if I did not drown. I shouted from time to time,
till I found it was of no use, and then gave my thoughts to keeping awake
and warm enough to live. I knew that my chance would be with the next
turn of the tide, when the ice would move with it, and also the wind, up
the river. So it turned out. I was at last able to break my way through
the loosened ice to Plain Point, and then had a two-mile walk home; and I
can tell you that it never seemed so like home before."

"Oh, Burt, please don't go out again when the ice is running," was his
mother's comment on the story.

"Thoreau speaks of seeing black ducks asleep on a pond whereon thin ice
had formed, inclosing them, daring the March night," said Webb. "Have you
ever caught them napping in this way?"