BAKER FARM. 
225 
Children of the Holy Dove, 
And Guy Faux of the state, 
And hang conspiracies 
From the tough rafters of the trees ! ” 
Men come tamely home at night only from the next 
field or street, where their household echoes haunt, and 
their life pines because it breathes its own breath over 
again; their shadows morning and evening reach far¬ 
ther than their daily steps. We should come home 
from far, from adventures, and perils, and discoveries 
every day, with new experience and character. 
Before I had reached the pond some fresh impulse 
had brought out John Field, with altered mind, letting 
go 66 bogging ” ere this sunset. But he, poor man, dis¬ 
turbed only a couple of fins while I was catching a fair 
string, and he said it was his luck; but when we changed 
seats in the boat luck changed seats too. Poor John 
Field!—I trust he does not read this, unless he will 
improve by it,—thinking to live by some derivative old 
country mode in this primitive new country,—to catch 
perch with shiners. It is good bait sometimes, I allow. 
With his horizon all his own, yet he a poor man, born to 
be poor, with his inherited Irish poverty or poor life, his 
Adam’s grandmother and boggy ways, not to rise in this 
world, he nor his posterity, till their wading webbed 
bog-trotting feet get talaria to their heels. 
15 
