264 THe Aroostook Woops. 

You are a pretty little brook with a clean, pebbly bottom, 
deep little pools and bright sandy bars, and have really told 
us true; for now, just here, are the heads and feet of what was 
some of your noble trees. And just below again, we see that 
several old giants of the ridge have at the last laid down 
across your banks, as if they loved you to the end; and rather 
than to fall and lie mouldering upon the lower ground away 
from you, they leaned always toward you until the very last, 
and then laid down beside the little brook they had so long 
sheltered and shadowed, your loves being mutual. 
But the little brook, always alive, is always flowing to 
moisten the roots of the old and the young trees, and as we 
move down beside it, it is going with us, running in and out 
among the rocks, and down a quicker descent to a tiny dead 
water, with a little fringe of alders, at the head of which the 
white gravel worked off in clean beds, speaks plainly, as being 
another spawning ground for the trout. 
Again with happy, gurgling laugh, it is running between 
and eddying around the rocks, to repeat its merry tumbling at 
the bottom beside the river. Coming in sight of the river we 
espy the captain, who has grounded the canoe upon a sand 
bar, a little below, and while waiting for the crew, has strung 
up his lancewood, and is just right in his glory. 
The noisy brook helps me to get quite near to him behind 
some bushes without his seeing me. He is standing in mid 
stream with pole bent, paying out, and then reeling up again. 
The sun behind a cloud is nearly hidden, and just a pretty 
ripple waving over the stream. The picture, coming a little 
unexpectedly upon it, has an interest. I sit down upon a 
rock, and watch, to read his pleasure from his face. I cannot 
see just where the fish is, while fighting, but he is using all 
