AN IDYL or LITTLE RIVER 21 



crustaceans to be found in the shallow water. There 

 was a particularly garrulous hen — rather an under- 

 sized little lady — who made up in vociferousness what 

 she lacked in proportions. She was simply prattling all 

 the time, endeavoring her utmost as she poised in the 

 front of the duck boat, to call every band of feathered 

 creatures in the sky. 



The locality that Pete had chosen was a round, open 

 waterhole covering about four acres and surrounded by 

 tupelo gums. Margining the pond was a wide bed of 

 smartweed which stood stately and grossly rank as 

 though no storm had visited there. Pete threw out our 

 noisy decoys and assigned me a position in a huge cy- 

 press stump about seven feet high. There was ample 

 room for both of us within. We were screened by the 

 growth of sedge and foxtail grass which by some miracle 

 apparently had grown rank in the slow-rotting stump. 

 In the center of it where the grass was pressed down 

 into a comfortable reposing bed it was warm to the 

 touch of my hand, and Pete told me that just an instant 

 before a deer had been resting there. 



Hardly had those decoys started to feed when the 

 ducks came in all at once. Peter never touched his lips 

 to his walnut call. He didn't have to! That noisy 

 ben did it all. Her powers were simply irresistible, for 

 veritably she called them out of the clouds. Our scope 

 of vision was necessarily narrowed by the tall trees. It 



