180 ON THE EDGE OF THE WILDERNESS 
by Ma and the children, and if any dog did get to 
the spot, if only a second later, he looked down 
upon a calm and silent swimming pool, with only 
a ripple or two to break the surface. 
“ Get under water, and be quick about it! ”— 
that was a lesson Brownie soon learned, at any 
sign of danger. Once under water, he feared 
nothing. 
There were, to be sure, some things in the water 
he didn’t particularly like, chief among them the 
big German carp which inhabited the polluted 
waters of the Housatonic River. It is to be 
feared that neither Brownie nor his parents read 
the New York Tribune, so they didn’t hate the 
German carp because they were told to. Their 
objection was based strictly on dietary grounds. 
The carp were tough and strong. Brownie much 
preferred just what you would prefer—trout, 
pickerel, bass, perch, eels. Now and then, to get 
into streams where these real fish were to be 
found, Brownie and his family had to swim up or 
down the Housatonic, and here they encountered 
the carp, as well as the sewage from certain of the 
Berkshire towns which so proudly boast their 
