A SUMMER VOYAGE 5 



and there, as you rounded some point, and flapping 

 disconsolately ahead till lost to view, or standing 

 like a gaunt spectre on the umbrageous side of the 

 mountain, his motionless form revealed against the 

 dark green as you passed; the trees and willows 

 and alders that hemmed you in on either side, and 

 hid the fields and the farmhouses and the road that 

 ran near by, these things and others aided the 

 skimmed milk to cast a gloom over my spirits that 

 argued ill for the success of my undertaking. Those 

 rubber boots, too, that parboiled my feet and were 

 clogs of lead about them, whose spirits are elastic 

 enough to endure them? A malediction upon the 

 head of him who invented them! Take your old 

 shoes, that will let the water in and let it out again, 

 rather than stand knee-deep all day in these extin- 

 guishers. 



I escaped from the river, that first night, and 

 took to the woods, and profited by the change. In 

 the woods I was at home again, and the bed of 

 hemlock boughs salved my spirits. A cold spring 

 run came down off the mountain, and beside it, 

 underneath birches and helmocks, I improvised my 

 hearthstone. In sleeping on the ground it is a 

 great advantage to have a back- log; it braces and 

 supports you, and it is a bedfellow that will not 

 grumble when, in the middle of the night, you 

 crowd sharply up against it. It serves to keep in 

 the warmth, also. A heavy stone or other point de 

 resistance at your feet is also a help. Or, better 

 Btill, scoop out a little place in the earth, a few 



