48 In Touch with Nature. 



sand — clothed in flesh, a trembling speck on the 

 troubled waters ; be not over-sure you are alone, 

 even though the coast is very clear. Later, the 

 puff! puff! of a steamboat was heard, and, as the 

 unsightly craft rounded a wooded point, my lone 

 duck was alive to man's proximity at once, and 

 how it had multiplied! A hundred, and not one, 

 rose in the clear air, moved by a common impulse, 

 and, fringing the low line of snowy clouds that 

 marked the horizon, sped northward. Think of 

 it ! here in the valley of the Delaware to-day ; to- 

 morrow, finding shelter in the rock-bound coves 

 of the New England coast, and at home every 

 where. 



Were the clouds envious? Rolling in huge 

 masses from the grim, gray east, they filled and 

 chilled the valley at a stroke. How quickly the 

 river responded ! There was left but the stern 

 reality of flowing water. If, before, the waves 

 laughed and were boisterous when they kissed the 

 shore, they sobbed now. Inanimate, of course, 

 but happily we need not hold it so ; and cannot, 

 indeed, when a mere cloud so strangely checks its 

 merriment. This same river, that laughed and 



