OUR COUNTRY LIFE 



craft from the neighboring lakes come to our modest 

 waters to compare speeds. Twenty or thirty entries 

 make the prizes well worth winning and the spectacle 

 an exciting one. What exhilarating pictures these an- 

 nual regattas bring us when sailboats like white- 

 winged gulls singly, by twos, and by threes come into 

 view from behind the willows, emerge into the 

 open water of the bay, go by the point of the island, 

 and disappear toward the east end of the lake! Above, 

 a cool gray sky, below a dancing sea; the outstretched 

 forms upon the "skimming-dish" appear as tense as 

 the white sail overhead, while the keel cuts through 

 the rippling waters or lifts its blunted nose before the 

 advancing waves. We watch each one eagerly as it 

 tacks in the head wind careening so far that it seems 

 impossible that it should ever right again; but just 

 as we cry, "There she goes!" up it swings in time to 

 take another tack. The scattered boats pass in pro- 

 longed procession — "46," "39," "27"— accompanied by 

 the steam yachts at a respectful distance. 



Soon from the village buoy comes the sharp whistle 



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