THE MATING OF BROWNIE 183 
the river banks. They had been up and down 
the river a few miles, and up and down tributary 
brooks, into small lakes and ponds, but except 
when they played on the top of the banks and saw 
from that height distant hills and woods and blue 
things called mountains, they knew the world 
chiefly as two banks rising over their heads on 
either side of the water, banks clothed with mild 
water pepper plants, trailing balsam apples, 
bright jewel weed, blue vervain like little cande- 
labra, drooping willows, brilliant cardinal flowers. 
It was a pretty world, to be sure—no gardens are 
fairer than those of the river bank. Yet the chil- 
dren hankered, as young folks will, for adventure, 
for new sights and sounds, and great was their 
excitement when the expedition started. Its real 
object, one suspects, was a better food supply, for 
five otters can pretty well fish a stream in a sum- 
mer, but that didn’t lessen the fun any for 
Brownie and his brother and sister. 
Pa Otter led the way, and they swam up their 
brook two miles into the lake, and then a mile to 
the upper end of the lake, and then two miles 
more up a smaller brook, which emptied into it, 
