Fog Is a Puzzlement 291 



don't look natural. I saw a sheep in a Georgia fog once. It 

 looked so big I thought it was a cow 'til I got real close. Fog 

 is a puzzlement." 



I paddled slowly. The open space which surrounded me 

 moved with my canoe. My hands became damp, my face 

 cold, and tiny drops covered the canoe rails. I could dis- 

 tinguish clearly only the nearest objects. From a standpoint 

 of visibility I might as well have been on some tramp wind- 

 jammer out on the high seas. 



High seas instantly recalled a boy who had haunted the 

 swamp one summer. Herbie— twelve, quiet, sturdy, and khaki- 

 clad— concentrated on ships and the seven seas instead of the 

 horses and cowboys so popular with his pals. He approached 

 me frequently in a boat of his own making: an extraordinary 

 affair fashioned from one piece of a sheet iron sign ( painted 

 advertising still visible), resembling a bathtub in the center 

 and with the bow and stern shaped by nailing the sheet ends 

 to strips of wood. An outrigger, held about three feet from 

 the hull by sticks projecting from the ends, made it fairly 

 seaworthy in the sheltered waters of the bay. 



To me it was on the level of the hide boats of the ancients, 

 but Herbie regarded it differently. He saw no defects, never 

 apologized for its turtle-like slowness or its unpleasant habit 

 of shipping water when the swells of boats struck it. His fre- 

 quent references to distant seas indicated that he had read 

 stories of marine adventure. I am quite sure that he seldom 

 thought of himself as paddling about the marsh. He fancied 

 that he was sailing in waters which man had seldom navi- 

 gated. 



That is why the thought of high seas recalled Herbie. A 

 foggy day would have awakened his imagination and he 

 would have become a Norseman directing his craft in stormy 

 waters. His single three-foot paddle would have been the 

 great steering sweep which he handled at the stern while he 

 gave orders to the crew as they toiled at the bank of oars. 



