66 EVERYDAY ADVENTURES 



spring-hole remains unfrozen. I dipped up a pitcher- 

 ful of the soft, spicy cedar-water pulsing from the 

 very heart of the marsh. The Pinies have a saying 

 that he who drinks cedar-water will always come 

 back to the barrens, no matter how far afield he may 

 wander. 



As I came to the porch-steps, in the dark stream 

 just below me I saw a strange thing. Underneath the 

 water a ball of fire flashed down the stream and dis- 

 appeared around the bend. For a long time I tried to 

 puzzle out what it could be. There was no form of 

 aquatic phosphorescent life that would swim through 

 a northern stream in the depths of winter. It was 

 only when I started to tell the time by the sky clock 

 that the mystery was solved. I was looking at the 

 star Caph in Cassiopeia, which is the hour-hand of 

 the clock, when suddenly a meteor flashed down the 

 sky, and I realized that my submarine of a few mo- 

 ments before had been only the reflection of another 

 shooting star. 



As I stopped on the porch with my pitcher, the 

 open door made a long lane of light. Just across the 

 creek, not fifty feet away, sounded a crash in the 

 brush, and there in the spotlight, held by the glare, 

 stood a big buck. For a moment I looked right 

 into his beautiful, liquid, gleaming eyes. Then, with 

 a snort, he plunged into the woods and was gone. 

 For years I had tramped through the barrens and 

 had found the tracks of the deer that still live not 

 thirty miles from the third largest city in America, 

 but until that night I had never seen one. 



