138 THE FASCINATION OF LIGHT 
the mill, and toiled at them with all the tools in the 
woodshed till the ends and edges were made smooth. 
He collected lumber from all available sources for 
the ends and bottom, fastening them on with a 
miscellaneous collection of nails and sprigs , Then he 
patiently picked an old piece of tarred rope into 
oakum, and calked it into the seams with a sharpened 
gate-hinge. He notched a Pine tree, gathered the gum 
and boiled it into pitch to make the joints tight. 
That extraordinary pair of oars he sawed, chopped, 
and whittled from an old plank. The spear is a family 
relic which he dug up and fitted with a white-ash 
pole, and the anchor is a long stone, tied by the slack 
of a clothes-line. The jack is a basket made of old 
pail-hoops, and fastened to an upright stick to hold 
the burning pine knot. Yet we wonder why it is 
always the country boy who succeeds in the city. 
Will he, too, be lured by the seductive glimmer i 
Will he turn away from the conquest of nature and 
embark in the conquest of his fellow-mortals i Will 
he go to a resort for his fishing and a preserve for his 
shooting i Will that bunch of hair protruding from 
under his hat be worn thin and grey in scrambling 
after the delights of the vain and the covetous < 
Will he devote his superb strength of body and mind 
to outstripping and circumventing his fellows in the 
pursuit of that transient glimmer, that all-alluring 
ignis fatuus which the Babylon world calls success i 
