138 THE FASCINATION OF LIGHT 



the mill, and toiled at them with all the tools in the 

 woodshed till the ends and edges were made smooth, 

 He collected lumber from all available sources for 

 the ends and bottom, fastening them on with a 

 miscellaneous collection of nails and sprigs. Then he 

 patiently picked an old piece of tarred rope into 

 oakum, and calked it into the seams with a sharpened 

 gate-hinge. He notched a Pine tree, gathered the gum 

 and boiled it into pitch to make the joints tight. 

 That extraordinary pair of oars he sawed, chopped, 

 and whittled from an old plank. The spear is a family 

 relic which he dug up and fitted with a white-ash 

 pole, and the anchor is a long stone, tied by the slack 

 of a clothes-line. The jack is a basket made of old 

 pail-hoops, and fastened to an upright stick to hold 

 the burning pine knot. Yet we wonder why it is 

 always the country boy who succeeds in the city. 



Will he, too, be lured by the seductive glimmer 4 

 Will he turn away from the conquest of nature and 

 embark in the conquest of his fellow-mortals 4 Will 

 he go to a resort for his fishing and a preserve for his 

 shooting t Will that bunch of hair protruding from 

 under his hat be worn thin and grey in scrambling 

 after the delights of the vain and the covetous 4 

 Will he devote his superb strength of body and mind 

 to outstripping and circumventing his fellows in the 

 pursuit of that transient glimmer, that all-alluring 

 ignis fatuus which the Babylon world calls success ^ 



