18 A SUxMMER BOATING TRIP 



and rattled and whipped in around the abutment of 

 the bridge to reach me ! I looked out well satisfied upon 

 the foaming water, upon the wet, unpainted houses 

 and barns of the Shavertowners, and upon the trees, 



"Caught and cuffed by the gale." 



Another traveler — the spotted-winged nighthawk — 

 was also roughly used by the storm. He faced it bravely, 

 and beat and beat, but was unable to stem it, or even 

 hold his own ; gradually he drifted back, till he was lost 

 to siirht in the wet obscurity. The water in the river 

 rose an inch while I waited, about three quarters of an 

 hour. Only one man, I reckon, saw me in Shavertown, 

 and he came and gossiped with me from the bank 

 above when the storm had abated. 



The second night I stopped at the sign of the elm- 

 tree. The woods were too w^et, and I concluded to 

 make my boat my bed. A superb elm, on a smooth 

 grassy plain a few feet from the water's edge, looked 

 hospitable in the twilight, and I drew my boat up 

 beneath it. I hung my clothes on the jagged edges of 

 its rough bark, and went to bed with the moon, " in her 

 third quarter," peeping under the branches upon me. 

 I had been reading Stevenson's amusing "Travels 

 with a Donkey," and the lines he pretends to quote 

 from an old play kept running in my head : — • 



"The bed was made, the room was fit. 

 By punctual eve the stars were lit; 

 The air was sweet, the water ran; 

 No need was there for maid or man. 

 When we put up, my ass and I, 

 At God's green caravanserai." 



But the stately elm played me a trick: it slyly and at 

 iong intervals let great drops of water down upon me. 



