THE MATING OF BROWNIE 181 
cleanliness and beauty. How Brownie hated 
that filthy water! The carp alone lived and 
throve in it, and he would pick out and chase 
down a big one just out of spite, to vent his ill 
feelings toward pollution in general. But, un- 
less he was very hungry, he would not eat so much 
as a mouthful of his kill. 
It was rather up in the pond above the den that 
Brownie best enjoyed fishing. Here were lily 
pads and pickerel weed and arrowhead growing 
out from the shore, and here the long, lean pick- 
erel hovered and darted like wraiths under the 
water—like wraiths to you or me in a canoe 
above, looking down into a dim half-world as 
through brown glass, but real enough to Brownie 
as he, too, swam below the surface. He would 
swim down the darting fish, heading it off from 
deep water again and again, driving it steadily in 
shore, till presently there was no way for the pick- 
erel to turn without giving Brownie a chance to 
closeinon him. Then, with the fish in his mouth, 
the otter would raise his keen, bright, intelligent 
eyes and his flat muzzle and his comical whiskers, 
slowly above the water and the weeds, to look 
