54 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 



languish day by day, and pine in sorrow during 

 their imprisonment ? Nay, for does not Don 

 Quixote say, " Sir, melancholy was not made for 

 beasts but for men " ? These very boatmen that 

 now are so zealous for liberty will, by and by 

 when the sun has gone behind that tree, sink 

 down and solace these their woes by eating water- 

 shrimps and earth-worms, and the jar-world will 

 be calm once more. How many griefs doth 

 eating assuage, not only in the bug, but in the 

 human. 



All people do not admire the boatmen. Well 

 do I remember the frankness with which one 

 urchin (who had his head bound up with a rag 

 on account of an attack of poison-oak, and who 

 found me gathering Notonectidce) exclaimed. " If 

 I was collectin' curiosities, I 'd get something 

 worth lookin' at ! " 



His charming directness of speech was equalled 

 on another occasion that lingers in my memory 

 by that of an old woman, whom I take to have 

 been a wanderer from Erin's Isle staking out her 

 goat, and who, looking upon me as I met her in 

 the path, demanded what were the contents of my 

 pail. Ignoring the suddenness of our introduction 

 to one another, I brought up from the depths 

 some of my beetles. 



" Now," quoth the old woman, after a look at 

 the uncanny beings, " how much nicer it would be 

 for you to get fish than those things. There are 



