enjoyed the poignant delight of fishing for hens out of the barn loft;
my tackle consisted of a bent pin at the end of a string tied to a
stick. It was baited with a grain of corn, or a bit of rag would do as
well, for hens have no hereditary suspicion of anglers, and are much
more readily entrapped than fishes. Pulling them up, squawking and
fluttering, was thrilling, but, of course, it was wrong, like other
thrilling things, and had to be foregone. A less unregenerate
experiment was fastening two grains of corn to the ends of a long bit
of thread; two hens would seize each a grain and begin swallowing
thread until they interfered, with each other, when a disgorgement
would take place. It was an economical sport--the one bit of thread
and the two corn-grains would last all day--and, in view of the joy
afforded to the spectators, did not seem too unkind. My father had
mechanical talent, and with an old door-knob and some strips of
shingle he would make a figure of a man with a saw; you fixed it to
the edge of a table, set the door-knob swinging, and the creature
would saw with the most absurd diligence. From the same shingle he
would construct a pugilist, who, being set up where the wind played
upon him, would swing his arms interminably. It was yacht-building,
however, that afforded us most entertainment. A shingle was whittled
to a point at one end; a stick with a square paper slipped on it was
stuck up in the middle, and a rudder made fast to the stern; such a
boat would sail boldly out upon the vastness of the lake, till the eye
could no longer follow the diminishing white speck. These days beside
the lake were full of good things. The water was clear, with a white
sand bottom; we were given swimming-lessons in the hot summer weather;
having waded in up to our middles, we faced towards the shore, where
sat our father with a long fishing-pole, the end of which he kept
within our reach, and bade us lean forward on the water and kick up
our feet. But, for my part, I kept one foot on the bottom. It was not