MY OWN ACRE 



glint, if no more, of water. And so there I 

 thought at once to give myself what I had all 

 my life most absurdly wished for, a fish-pool. 

 I had never been able to look upon an aquarium 

 and keep the tenth Commandment. I had never 

 caught a fish without wanting to take it home 

 and legally adopt it into the family — a tendency 

 which once led my son to say, *'Yes, he would 

 be pleased to go fishing with me if I would only 

 fish in a sportsmanlike manner." What a beau- 

 tifully marked fish is the sun-perch ! Once, 

 in boyhood, I kept six of those "pumpkin- 

 seed" in a cistern, and my smile has never been 

 the same since I lost them — one of my war 

 losses. 



I resolved to impound the waters of my spring 

 in the ravine and keep fish at last — without 

 salt — to my heart's content. Yet I remem- 

 bered certain restraining precepts: first, that 

 law of art which condemns incongruity — re- 

 quires everything to be in keeping with its nat- 

 ural surroundings — and which therefore, for one 

 thing, makes an American garden the best pos- 

 sible sort of garden to have in America; second, 



15 



