WILD PASTURES 



four dents, hopping at times like a 

 veritable flea. Sometimes he jumps a 

 half-inch high and skitters along the 

 surface as a boy skips a stone; again he 

 poises, lowers his body till it all but 

 rests on the water, then raises it till he 

 is high on four stilts, and all the time 

 not even his toes are wet. 



Entering the cove in mid-afternoon 

 you might think the swooning heat had 

 left it no life awake other than the 

 water insects and the dragon-flies that 

 race them in airship fashion above. 

 Yet you have but to ground your canoe 

 on a sedgy shallow, sit motionless, and 

 wait. Nor have you to wait long. 

 There is a breathless pause as if all 

 things waited to see what this leviathan 

 of the outer deep meant to do next; 

 then a voice at your very elbow says 

 reassuringly, " Tu-g-g-g ! " That is as 

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