HUEBAH! FOB THE COUNTRY! 33 



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ship with bare masts riding at anchor it seems. That other 

 island, away to the right, with its great boulders and bare 

 rocks rising straight up out of the water, is a fortification, a 

 stronghold surrounded by a wall of solid masonry, and 

 bristling with cannon. We can almost see the sentinel, and 

 hear his measured tramp as he travels his lonely rounds, 

 keeping watch out over the waters. See all along the shore, 

 as you look up the bay towards the Lake House, how the 

 millions of fireflies flash their tiny torches, upward and down- 

 ward, this way and that, mingling and crossing, and gyrat- 

 ing and whirling a troubled and billowy sea of millions upon 

 millions of glowing and sparkling gems. 



Header, were you and I gifted with the spirit of poetry, what 

 inspiration would we not gather from the glories which sur- 

 round us, as we float of a summer evening over these beautiful 

 lakes, sleeping away out here, in all their virgin loveliness, 

 among these old primeval things ? But you ask, " what inspi- 

 ration can there be in a moon and stars, that we see every 

 night, when the sky is cloudless ; in a desolate wilderness ; the 

 roar of the frogs ; the hooting of owls ; these useless waters ; 

 the phosphorescent flash of lightning bugs ; these piled up 

 rocks and barren mountains ? Can you grow corn on these 

 hills, or make pastures of these rocky lowlands ? Can you 

 harness these rivers to great waterwheels, or make reservoirs 

 of these lakes ? Can you convert these old forests into lum- 

 ber or cordwood ? Can you quarry these rocks, lay them 

 up with mortar into houses, mills, churches, public edifices ? 

 Can you make what you call these 'old prune val things' 



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