24 OUTDOOR STUDIES 
with the second. A square mile even of pond 
water is worth a year’s schooling to any intelli- 
gent boy. A boat isa kingdom. I personally 
own one, —a mere flat-bottomed “ float ” with a 
centreboard. It has seen service, — it is eight 
years old, —has spent two winters under the 
ice, and has been fished in by boys every day 
for as many summers. It grew at last so hope- 
lessly leaky that even the boys disdained it. 
It cost seven dollars originally, and I would not 
sell it to-day for seventeen, except with a view 
to buying another. To own the poorest boat 
is better than hiring the best. It is a link to 
Nature; without a boat, one is so much the 
less a man. 
Sailing is of course delicious ; it is as good 
as flying to steer anything with wings of can- 
vas, whether one stand by the wheel of a clip- 
per-ship, or by the clumsy stern-oar of a “gun- 
dalow.”” But rowing has also its charms; and 
the Indian noiselessness of the paddle, beneath 
the fringing branches of the Assabeth or Arti- 
choke, puts one into Fairyland at once, and 
Hiawatha’s cheemaun becomes a possible pos- 
session. Rowing is peculiarly graceful and 
appropriate as a feminine exercise, and any 
able-bodied girl can learn to handle one light 
oar at the first lesson, and two at the second. 
Swimming has also a birdlike charm of mo- 
