patch) ; an engagement to keep, like Thoreau, 

 with a tree, if I hope to squander with profit 

 even the laziest summer day. 



I was heading up-stream toward a deep 

 sandy-sided pool that was bottomed, or rather 

 unbottomed, by the shadows of overhanging 

 beeches. The pool was alive with racoon- 

 perch. A few mornings before this, a boy from 

 a neighboring farm had come to fish here and 

 had found a fisher ahead of him. He was just 

 about to cast, when back under the limbs of the 

 beeches the water broke, and a mink rose to the 

 surface with a fine perch twisting in her jaws. 

 Straight toward the boy she swam till within 

 reach of his rod, when she recognized the hu- 

 man in him, turned a back-dive somersault, 

 and vanished. 



Would she be fishing again this morning? I 

 hoped so. It was her hour— the hour of the 

 rising mist ; visitors rarely found their way to 

 the pool ; and I knew the appearance of the boy 

 had given her no lasting alarm. 



Floating around the bend, I pulled in among 

 the shore bushes by a bit of grape-vine, and sit- 

 ting down upon it, made my boat fast. I had 

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