the pond and the upper creek were still shrouded, 

 while around me only breaths of the white flecked 

 the water and the spatter-docks. The breeze 

 had not stirred a ripple ; the current here in 

 the broad of the pond was imperceptible ; and I 

 lay becalmed on the edge of the open channel, 

 among the rank leaves and golden knobs of the 

 docks. 



A crowd of chimney-swallows gathered over 

 the pond for a morning bath. Half a hundred 

 of them were wheeling, looping, and cutting 

 about me in a perfect maze of orbits, as if so 

 many little black shuttles had borrowed wings 

 and gone crazy with freedom. They had come 

 to wash — a very proper thing to do, for there 

 are few birds or beasts that need it more. It 

 was highly fitting for sooty little Tom, seeing he 

 had to turn into something, to become a Water 

 Baby. And if these smaller, winged sweeps of 

 our American chimneys are contemplating a 

 metamorphosis, it ought to be toward a similar 

 life of soaking. 



They must have been particularly sooty this 

 morning. One plunge apiece, so far from sufficing, 

 seemed hardly a beginning. They kept diving 

 [128] 



