178 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 



midst of the grass and leave them to walk back 

 to the pool. If they were beetles with wings, 

 one could easily drop them and relieve one's con- 

 science by the remembrance that they could fly. 

 But such mode of progression is denied the wa- 

 ter-shrimps, and if it happens to be a day when 

 the bug-hunter is specially tender-hearted he will 

 turn back and shake the dredger over the brook 

 once more. If it be a hard-hearted period, the 

 bug-catcher proceeds onward with a guilty con- 

 sciousness that he will see the dried bodies of 

 those shrimps adorning his dredger next day. 

 Whichever way the bug-catcher decides, his peace 

 of mind is destroyed, and he mentally anathema- 

 tizes the water-shrimp. 



Here on our pathway, as we go to get " bugs," 

 is an old shoe, cast away on the hill-side. Was 

 there ever a fabled divinity of the ancient time 

 to whom old shoes were sacred ? Memory saith 

 not, but to Vidar the Silent, the son of Odin, 

 were due the scraps of leather that were cut from 

 the toes and heels in making patterns for shoes, 

 and the Norse shoemaker who wished to assist the 

 gods was charged to throw away all such pieces, 

 since it was supposed that they went to make 

 Vidar the Silent's shoe. Of this it was told, " It 

 is a thick shoe, of which it is said that material 

 has been gathered for it through all ages." Per- 

 haps, if Vidar had not been too proud to receive 

 offerings of old shoes, he might have constructed 

 his own foot-covering the sooner. 



