My Boyhood and Youth 



father, but Muir's Lake by the neighbors, is 

 one of the many small glacier lakes that adorn 

 the Wisconsin landscapes. It is fed by twenty 

 or thirty meadow springs, is about half a mile 

 long, half as wide, and surrounded by low 

 finely-modeled hills dotted with oak and hick- 

 ory, and meadows full of grasses and sedges 

 and many beautiful orchids and ferns. First 

 there is a zone of green, shining rushes, and 

 just beyond the rushes a zone of white and 

 orange water-lilies fifty or sixty feet wide form- 

 ing a magnificent border. On bright days, when 

 the lake was rippled by a breeze, the lilies and 

 sun-spangles danced together in radiant beauty, 

 and it became difficult to discriminate between 

 them. 



On Sundays, after or before chores and ser- 

 mons and Bible-lessons, we drifted about on 

 the lake for hours, especially in lily time, get- 

 ting finest lessons and sermons from the water 

 and flowers, ducks, fishes, and muskratsX In 

 particular we took Christ's advice and de- 

 voutly "considered the lilies" how they 

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