Hopkins's Pond. 9 



days that there was something green-eyed 

 as well as something brown-eyed out for 

 an outing when the weather was right ; 

 but boys who are supposed to have no 

 troubles at all are all full of them, because 

 they have the emotions of older folks with- 

 out the training to discover the locality 

 of a thorn. Many are their troubles which 

 make a lasting impression through life. 



One of us boys was so enthusiastic 

 about trapping muskrats that he got up at 

 four o'clock every morning all through the 

 winter and tramped miles along the streams 

 before breakfast, watching the habits of 

 the warmer-coated denizens of the brook, 

 hunting for their holes under the banks 

 and the paths where they came up into 

 the meadow for grass. A heap of unio 

 shells had for him a meaning. A burrow 

 under the snow to a certain apple tree 

 showed which frozen apples the muskrats 

 liked best. A soggy, decayed log in the 

 water always carried a definite evidence 

 of their fondness for that spot, and the 

 boy knew that his trap would be sprung 

 and the sweet apple pulled from its stick 



