30 PEP ACTON: A SUMMER VOYAGE. 



wheels I ever looked upon was a cradle of ancient 

 and peculiar make, an aristocratic cradle, with high- 

 turned posts and an elaborately carved and molded 

 body, that was suspended upon rods and swung from 

 the top. How I should have liked to hear its history 

 and the story of the lives it had rocked, as the rain 

 sang and the boughs tossed without. Above it was 

 the cradle of a phoebe-bird saddled upon a stick that 

 ran behind the rafter ; its occupants had not flown, 

 and its story was easy to read. 



Soon after the first shock of the storm was over, 

 and before I could see breaking sky, the birds tuned 

 up with new ardor, the robin, the indigo bird, the 

 purple finch, the sparroV, and in the meadow below 

 the bobolink. The cockerel near me followed suit, 

 and repeated his refrain till my meditations were so 

 disturbed that I was compelled to eject him from the 

 cover, albeit he had the best right there. But he 

 crowed his defiance with drooping tail from the yard 

 in front. I, too, had mentally crowed over the good 

 fortune of the shower, but before I closed my eyes 

 that night my crest was a good deal fallen, and I 

 could have wished the friendly elements had not 

 squared their accounts .quite so readily and uproari- 

 ously. 



The one shower did not exhaust the supply a bit ; 

 Nature's hand was full of trumps yet, yea, and her 

 sleeve too. I stopped at a trout-brook, which came 

 down out of the mountains on the right, and took a 

 few trout for my supper ; but its current was too 



