224 GREEN TRAILS AND UPLAND PASTURES 



the Idler in there when summer was over, get the 

 chains under her, and block her up for the winter. 

 She spent the winter on one side of the slip; the Sea 

 Mist, a clumsy craft that couldn't stir short of a half 

 gale, spent the winter on the other side. Over them, 

 on racks, the rowboats were slung. There was a larger 

 boathouse for the big fellows. What busy days we 

 spent in May or June, caulking and scraping and paint- 

 ing, splicing and repairing, making the little Idler 

 ready for the sea again! She was an eighteen-foot 

 cat, a bit of a tub, I fear, but the best on the Pond in 

 her day, eating up close into the wind, sensitive, alert, 

 with a pair of white heels she had shown to many a 

 larger craft. Surely it was but yesterday that I 

 rowed out to her where she was moored a hundred 

 feet from shore, climbed aboard, hoisted sail, and, with 

 my pipe drawing sweetly, sat down beside the tiller and 

 played out the sheet till the sail filled, there was a crack 

 and snaffle of straining tackle, the boat leaped for- 

 ward, the tiller batted my ribs, the Idler heeled over, 

 and then quietly, softly, as rhythmic as a song, the 

 water raced hissing along her rail, the little waves 

 slapped beneath her bow and the world was good to 

 be alive in! Surely it was but yesterday that the 

 white sail of the Idler was like a gull's wing on the 

 Pond! 



But the white sail wings are few on the Pond to-day, 

 and the Idler lies on her side in the weeds behind the 



