Getting Acquainted 253 



first Cosset lambs, and was relieved that there 

 was not a familiar look on a single face. Even 

 here, I was generalizing from "Nan and Lilly,' 7 to 

 a personal knowledge of a whole bleating race. 

 It had been the night before when the passing 

 flock of wild Geese right over the house called me 

 back from the coma into which I seemed to be 

 sinking. Dead "Canada" was the leader and was 

 pointing the way to the still waters that would 

 quench my intolerable thirst. Now I might have 

 shot and dressed and cooked a score of Geese, and 

 eaten a different part of each without coming to 

 know a thing worth while about "Canada," "The 

 element of life in God's great picture of Autumn." 

 Once upon a time (as all true stories begin), 

 we occupied my wife's Uncle's Cottage in Florida, 

 and the Post Master and general merchant in the 

 near-by village, wanting to discharge some obli- 

 gation to this Uncle, came with guns, dogs, Ponies, 

 and Buck-Board to take me hunting. He certain- 

 ly had not come because he knew me, and had 

 planned the expedition because he did not know 

 me. We drove directly to an entirely deserted 

 village four miles away, where private informa- 

 tion had reached him that game was simply wait- 

 ing to be killed. And so it proved, for we had not 

 hitched the Ponies in an old shed before he dis- 

 covered an immense covey of Quail in the rank 

 growth of weeds not ten feet away. He thrust 



