145 



Even the solitary bluebird that far overhead was 

 hurrying toward the river valley, warbled in most melan- 

 choly tones as it crossed my neighbor's clover, and I, too, 

 saw nothing to stay my steps, and yet it was a perfect 

 June morning. Wayside weeds, clover blossoms, and a 

 long vine-clad worm fence were as nothing ; yet had they 

 been by sparkling waters, how readily I should have 

 lingered there ! As it was, I felt drawn toward open 

 water, and passed every object in the fields without a 

 glance at any. My eyes thirsted for a watery landscape, 

 and I hurried, without a fear of disappointment and in 

 high hopes of novelty, toward the near-by mill-pond. 



The high banks, themselves shut in by the crowded 

 growth of vigorous young trees, hid the pond until I was 

 at its very edge, and then, to my chagrin, I found no 

 sparkling waters between the shores, no floating isles of 

 lilies, no forest of splatter-docks, but instead a wide reach 

 of sun-cracked mud and the trivial forest brook of Indian 

 times. I had come too far not to make the most of a bad 

 matter, and for water I must content myself with mud. 

 The outlook was at first unpromising. 



If I mistake not, it had been many years since the 

 mill-pond was so nearly empty as now. As I looked up 

 and down the little stream, the whole region appeared de- 

 serted. Desolation brooded over the valley and cast a 

 shadow even upon the adjoining woods. But was this not 

 a condition born of my own feeling of disappointment, 

 and so a false interpretation ? Would I have seen more, 

 or heard more, had I found the expected sheet of water 

 instead of a mud-flat? There is no reason to think it. 

 As the animal life that long ago adapted itself to other 

 conditions had proved equal to the emergency of a sudden 

 change, so must I. Whatever had been my plans mattered 

 nothing ; what could now be done ? 



Besides the narrow cracks in the mud there were other 

 10 



