A SOUTHERLY RAIN. 249 



" I have been following up this matter for some time, 

 Uz, and have written something about it," I replied, 

 when he had fairly finished his little speech and com- 

 menced a vigorous puffing at his pipe. 



"Written something? well, that's no harm. Did 

 you have it printed ? " 



" Yes, certainly ; but why not ? " 



" Well, there's just this about it," Uz remarked very 

 slowly, evidently thinking as he spoke. " It may be all 

 very well to print what you know; but I've a notion 

 that you're not old enough yet to know much about 

 it." 



" You forget that you've been my teacher for some 

 years now, Uz," I interrupted the old man to remark. 



" Cleverly put, boy ; but I was goin' on to say, you 

 don't know ducks as I do ; but then but then but 

 then, if you wait till you're as old as I am, and see things 

 as I do, the world might set you down as cranky, if you 

 printed what you thought." 



" That isn't very encouraging, anyhow," I said, with 

 a half sigh. 



" The fact is, boy, that it can't be proved, I suppose ; 

 but animals of all kinds are not so wide apart from folks 

 as these very folks think they are. If I've learned nothing 

 else, by shootin' and fishin' all my life, I've learned that. 

 I've seen common-sense in snakes and frogs even ; and 

 I'm satisfied there's a sort of family likeness runnin' 

 through the whole of us, whether we've got two legs or 

 four." 



" That is the doctrine of evolution, Uz," I remarked. 



" Call it what you choose, boy, but it's true ; and my 

 pipe's out, and it's time we were movin'." And we con- 

 tinued on our wanderings after ducks. 



