SUrPEK. 



173 



Nested in a tussock of grass, on some of the sedgy shores of the 

 great northern rivers, it there lived on seed and succulent grasses, 

 and making its first migration southward, it stopped at the wild 

 rice-fields that fringe the shores of the big lakes at Sodus, or San- 

 dusky Bay, the Thousand Islands, or the morasses of the Calumet 

 Eiver, in Indiana, and then for a day or so at the celery beds of 

 the Chesapeake and Delaware, and then on the rice-fields of the 

 Caroline or Georgia planter. It is so conditioned that its breast is 

 flat, and its back is white with underlying fat, and by the colour of 

 its feet you can say it is its first winter out. Treat such a duck 

 gently, pick dry, and don't wash it Eoast it or broil it rare, and 

 when it is done, not crisp like a roast pig, but gently done, bear it 

 away from th$ fire lovingly as the Doctor carried the two that we 

 had cooked, and flank it with nothing discordant and gross, but with 

 some game bird, and nothing better than a English snipe, and then 

 thank the Lord who giveth us our meat in due season, for never 

 since man had dominion over the fowls of the air has there been 

 cooked a daintier dish. 



As the dinner progressed it had become dark, and then only 

 the blazing fire lighted the foliage and the rippling beach, and only 

 the faint call of the raccoon in the woods answered the heron and 

 the duck in the marsh, and gradually we sank down to our usual 

 places, talking in a low tone, and casting remarks back into 

 memory, and away into the future, now telling a tale, now half 

 singing a song, until we dropped asleep. 



" But what of the pumpkin ? " I hear you ask. 



Oh ! that we kept for the next day. 



