8 PEPACTON 



out having his privacy thus intruded upon. I 

 surprised hawks and herons and kingfishers. I 

 came suddenly upon muskrats, and raced with them 

 down the rifts, they having no time to take to their 

 holes. At one point, as I rounded an elbow in the 

 stream, a black eagle sprang from the top of a dead 

 tree, and flapped hurriedly away. A kingbird gave 

 chase, and disappeared for some moments in the 

 gulf between the great wings of the eagle, and I 

 imagined him seated upon his back delivering his 

 puny blows upon the royal bird. I interrupted 

 two or three minks fishing and hunting alongshore. 

 They would dart under the bank when they saw 

 me, then presently thrust out their sharp, weasel- 

 like noses, to see if the danger was imminent. At 

 one point, in a little cove behind the willows, I 

 surprised some schoolgirls, with skirts amazingly 

 abbreviated, wading and playing in the water. 

 And as much surprised as any, I am sure, was that 

 hard-worked-looking housewife, when I came up 

 from under the bank in front of her house, and 

 with pail in hand appeared at her door and asked 

 for milk, taking the precaution to intimate that I 

 had no objection to the yellow scum that is supposed 

 to rise on a fresh article of that kind. 

 "What kind of milk do you. want?'* 

 "The best you have. Give me two quarts of 

 it," I replied. 



" What do you want to do with it 1 " with an 

 anxious tone, as if I might want to blow up some- 

 thing or burn her barns with it. 



