22 PEPACTON: A SUMMER VOYAGE. 



The second night I stopped at the sign of the elm- 

 tree. The woods were too wet, and I concluded to 

 make my boat my bed. A superb elm, on a smooth 

 grassy plain a few feet from the water's edge, looked 

 hospitable in the twilight, and I drew my boat up be- 

 neath it. I hung my clothes on the jagged edges of 

 its rough bark, and went to bed with the moon, " in 

 her third quarter," peeping under the branches upon 

 me. I had been reading Stevenson's amusing " Trav- 

 els with a Donkey," and the lines he quotes from an 

 old play kept running in my head : 



" The bed was made, the room was fit, 

 By punctual eve the stars were lit ; 

 The air was sweet, the water ran ; 

 No need was there for maid or xan, 

 When we put up, my ass and I, 

 At God's green caravanserai." 



But the stately elm played me a trick : it slyly and 

 at long intervals let great drops of water down upon 

 me ; now with a sharp smack upon my rubber coat ; 

 then with a heavy thud upon the seat in the bow or 

 dtern of my boat ; then plump into my upturned ear, 

 or upon my uncovered arm, or with a ring into my 

 tin cup, or with a splash into my coffee pail that stood 

 at my side full of water from a spring I had just 

 passed. After two hours' trial I found dropping off 

 to sleep, under such circumstances, was out of the 

 question ; so I sprang up, in no very amiable mood 

 toward my host, and drew my boat clean from under 

 the elm. I had refreshing slumber thenceforth, and 

 the birds were astir in the morning long before J 

 was. 



