268 THE DAILY LIFE OF OUR FARM. 



asking me about them now, for their unexpected 



success is a puzzle.) So thoroughly effective is their 



action, that I could not get my boat near the bank- 



Acting as a buffer to the current on which we drifted, 



they would have nothing to do with us. I shall be so 



glad when the spring has come, and consolidated the 



new earth upon the slopes with well-rooted grass. We 



shall then be beyond the reach of tremo r. 



How odd it is that, despite all the wet we have had 



lately, the springs have not " come home " yet. The 



well that supplies the kitchen-range is lower than it 



was in June. 



" As the days lengthen, 

 So the springs strengthen," 



is an old and I suppose — at least from my own expe- 

 rience — a true adage. Why it is I don't know. One 

 would think that, if a fair tap were flowing in June, 

 an October soak would sufficiently re-supply the vessels. 

 In practice it is not so, however. 



Alack-a-day ! Since writing the above (for one stuffs 

 this pie at odd hours as occasion serves), such a dire 

 flood hath invaded us, or rather a tremendous redupli- 

 cation of floods — one yet more angry overriding 

 another. Such an onset of waters has not occurred in 

 this valley since 1852, bearing along with it a spoil of 

 all sorts from the upper country — dead carcases and 

 gates, and mighty trees, and, in one instance, a set of 

 steps belonging to a church ten miles above us, that is 

 built upon the bank. The boatmen were driving dan- 

 gerously in their punts backwards and forwards all the 

 daytime that the light lasted, fishing out the waifs and 

 strays. One night before the flood arrived at its 

 highest, I got a moonlight stroll beside the rising 



