TALKS WITH YOUNG OBSERVERS 313 



I met a little mouse in my travels the other 

 day that interested me. He was on his travels 

 also, and we met in the middle of a mountain 

 lake. I was casting my fly there when I saw 

 just sketched or etched upon the glassy surface 

 a delicate V-shaped figure, the point of whicli 

 reached about the middle of the lake, while the 

 two sides as they diverged faded out toward the 

 shore. I saw the point of this V was being 

 slowly pushed toward the opposite shore. I 

 drew near in my boat, and beheld a little mouse 

 swimming vigorously for the opposite shore. 

 His little legs appeared like swiftly revolving 

 wheels beneath him. As I came near he dived 

 under the water to escape me, but came up 

 again like a cork and just as quickly. It was 

 laughable to see him repeatedly duck beneath 

 the surface and pop back again in a twinkling. 

 He could not keep under water more than a 

 second or two. Presently I reached him my 

 oar, when he ran up it and into the palm of my 

 hand, where he sat for some time and arranged 

 his fur and warmed himself. He did not show 

 the slightest fear. It was probably the first 

 time he had ever shaken hands with a human 

 being. He was what we call a meadow mouse, 

 but he had doubtless lived all his life in the 

 woods and was strangely unsophisticated. How 

 his little round eyes did shine, and how he 

 sniffed me to find out if I was more dangerous 

 than I appeared to his sight. 



After a while I put him down in the bottom 

 of the boat and resumed my fishing. But it 



