264 Reminiscences of 



cant of fulness, for he would insist upon sniffing on the 

 foredeck to windward! He could swim all day, ten 

 miles or more if necessary and in the roughest sea, and 

 I never felt any anxiety when he slid overboard ; nor 

 he, for he well knew I would round up in due season 

 and scoop him up into the boat by the scruff of his 

 neck, when he would seem to say, after his water 

 shake, "All right, master, let's go on." 



One day we had a tough time of it, and it made me 

 smile to see Paris in his efforts to get aboard, when it 

 was about all I could do to stay there. It was the only 

 go-over of my boat which ever occurred in thirty years 

 of sailing the lake, and quite my own fault, which I 

 have always regretted in the loss of prestige with my 

 family, from some of whom I had occasional sugges- 

 tions of shipwreck, when the sky looked threatening 

 at my time of going out, for there was little fun for me 

 to go out in a kid-glove breeze. The particular day 

 when the accident occurred was an unusual one, when 

 some dark clouds were hanging about suspiciously, and 

 I would not have gone out sailing under normal con- 

 ditions. As the man said who was laying stone wall 

 near the buckboard route as we were driving to the 

 lake one day, where the stones were plentiful enough, 

 and the wall was already of elephantine proportions, 

 in answer to the inquiry of our driver why he was 

 building more stone wall when already overstocked, 

 ' ' Oh, when I feel mad I go out and lay stone wall ; that 

 rests me!" 



In somewhat of the spirit of the Berserker rage I 

 felt impelled to go out. I knew that the conditions 

 looked unusually stonny, somewhat in accord with my 

 feelings. I know not why, for I had no cause for agita- 



