18 A SUMMER BOATING TRIP 



and rattled and whipped in around the abutment of 

 the bridge to reach me ! I looked out well satisfied upon 

 the foaming water, upon the wet, unpainted houses 

 and barns of the Shavertowners, and upon the trees, 



"Caught and cuffed by the gale." 



Another traveler the spotted-winged nighthawk 

 was also roughly used by the storm. He faced it bravely, 

 and beat and beat, but was unable to stem it, or even 

 hold his own ; gradually he drifted back, till he was lost 

 to sight in the wet obscurity. The water in the river 

 rose an inch while I waited, about three quarters of an 

 hour. Only one man, I reckon, saw me in Shavertown, 

 and he came and gossiped with me from the bank 

 above when the storm had abated. 



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 

 beneath 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 "Travels 

 with a Donkey," and the lines he pretends to quote 

 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 man, 

 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, 



