THE LAUGH OF THE LOON. 1 27 



fresh and steady. It was too dark now to see the oppo- 

 site shore, and the fish rose at every cast ; and when I 

 bad a half dozen of the same sort, and one that lacked 

 only an ounce of being full four pounds, we pulled up the 

 killeck and paddled homeward around the wooded point. 

 The moon rose, and the scene on the lake now became 

 magically beautiful. The mocking laugh of the loon was 

 the only cause of complaint in that evening of splendor. 

 Who can sit in the forest in such a night, when earth and 

 air are full of glory — when the soul of the veriest block- 

 head must be elevated, and when a man begins to feel 

 as if there were some doubt whether he is even a little 

 lower than the angels — who, I say, can sit in such a 

 scene, and hear that fiendish laugh of the loon, and fail to 

 remember Eden and the tempter. Did you ever hear 

 that laugh? If so, you know what I mean. 



That mocking laugh was in my ears as I reeled in my 

 line, and, lying back in the bottom of the canoe, looked 

 up at the still and glorious sky. " Oh, that I could live 

 just here forever," I said, " in this still forest home, by this 

 calm lake, in this undisturbed companionship of earth 

 and sky. Oh that I could leave the life of labor among 

 men, and rest serenely here as my sun goes down the 

 sky." 



"Ho! ho! ha! ha!" laughed the loon across the lake, 

 under the great rock of the old Indian. 



Well, the loon was right ; and I was, like a great many 

 other men, mistaken in fancying a hermit's life— or, what 

 1 rather desired, a life in the country with a few friends — 

 as preferable to life among crowds of men. There is a 

 certain amount of truth, however, in the idea that man 

 made cities, and God made the country. 



Doubtless we human creatures were intended to live 



