SHOOTING MALLARDS FROM A SCULL BOAT. 59 



Too late ! The leaden hail has cut them down merci- 

 lesslj'. They are on the water. One of the flock misses 

 its mate, forgets its cause of alarm, and quickly returns 

 with wings curved down. A quick report, a dull splash, 

 as the feathers idly drift with the wind, and he, too, is 

 dead. A single green-winged teal darts past us. We 

 hastily bring up our guns, laugh at each othei', and 

 take them down. Our thoughts are identical. Each 

 feeling, that at the speed it was flying, the odds would 

 be in favor of the duck beating the shot in an even race. 



On a high ridge we stop for dinner. We drag from 

 out the covered bow an old four-quart tin bucket, 

 dirty and smutty with the smoke of many fires. We 

 suspend it from one forked green stick hanging on two 

 others. The snapping fire soon fills the air with escap- 

 ing aroma, and we eat, drink, and are happy. 



You chide me because I refuse your proffered cigar. 

 As you light its mate and liesurely throw yourself down, 

 on the soft leaf covered ground, tell me how you en- 

 joy it, and what a solace it is to you. My moustache 

 conceals a quiet smile that plays around my mouth, and 

 my thoughts revert to a place, where, at noon and even- 

 tide, on returning from my office, two little darlings 

 watch for me at the window, and -when the door is 

 opened spring into my arms, twining their soft arms 

 tenderly around my neck ; the eldest saying, between 

 resounding kisses, " I love you, papa dear, and love to 

 kiss you, 'cause you don't 'moke ! " while the sweet 

 blue eyes of the younger, look appealingly at me as she 

 exclaims, " And My loves papa too ! " 



Thou art blessed with eyes of deepest blue, 



Compared with 'which, the sky assumes a paler hue; 



Thou art my angels, with thy flaxen hair, 

 My pets, my darlings waiting for me there. 



